"Why, yes, of course," returned Schuyler. "Almost everyone's read that."
"Do you remember how it goes?" persisted Blake.
Schuyler thought a moment. Then, slowly, he recited:
"A fool there was, and he made his prayer,
(Even as you and I)
To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair.
We called her the woman who did not care.
But the fool, he called her his Lady Fair—"
He broke off, abruptly. "A weird thing," he said, as though to himself. "I never thought much about what it meant before…." He turned, abruptly. "Why did you ask me if I'd read it?" he demanded.
"Well," said Blake, flicking the ashes from his cigarette, "there's the fool," he nodded toward the drying spot upon the deck. "And there," he indicated, with a backward toss of his well-shaped head, the corridor down which had passed the woman, "is his lady fair. I've even heard," he went on, "that she used to call him her 'fool,' quoting the poem. Pretty little conceit, eh?" His jaw, firm, square, set tight. Then, with a touch of deeper feeling. "She murdered that boy just as surely as if she had cut his throat; and the worst of it is that she can't be held legally guilty—morally, yes, guilty as sin; but legally—" He shook his head. "The laws that man makes for mankind are a joke."
"As sometimes seem," added Schuyler, slowly, "the laws that God makes for mankind…. If what you say about that woman be true, she ought to be taken by the hair of the head and dragged through the hell she has built for others." His brows were knitted; he was gazing with unseeing eyes upon the bustle and confusion of the dock below.
Blake, eyeing him, remarked quietly, but in tones more light:
"However, that's not your job, nor mine, thank God. It would be an eminently suitable recreation for a debonair young man with a shattered reputation, a cast iron stomach, several millions of dollars and no objections to staying up by the year." He turned a little, toward Schuyler. "What are you thinking about?" he queried.
"Only the fool."