Hugh listened a moment and then said: "Oh, that's the poem Prof Blake read us the other day—you know, 'marpessa.' It's about the shepherd, Apollo, and Marpessa. It's great stuff. Listen."
They remained standing in the deserted hall, the voice coming clearly to them through the open doorway. "It's Freddy Fowler," Winsor whispered. "He can sure read."
The reading stopped, and they heard Fowler say to some one, presumably his room-mate: "This is the part that I like best. Get it," Then he read Idas's plea to Marpessa:
"'After such argument what can I plead?
Or what pale promise make? Yet since it is
In women to pity rather than to aspire,
A little I will speak. I love thee then
Not only for thy body packed with sweet
Of all this world, that cup of brimming June,
That jar of violet wine set in the air,