The young man with the stock nodded. “It is the exquisite pagan athirst in you, scorched by the fire of spring. Quench that sweet thirst at the fount beautiful——”
“What fount did you say?” she asked dangerously.
“The precious fount of verse, dear maid.”
“No!” she whispered violently. “I’m half drowned already. Words, smells, sounds, attitudes, rocking-chairs—and candles profaning the sunshine—I am suffocated, I need more air, more sense and less incense—less sound, less art——”
“Less—what?” he gasped.
“Less art!—what you call ‘l’arr’!—yes, I’ve said it; I’m sick! sick of art! I know what I require now.” And as he remained agape in shocked silence: “I don’t mean to be rude, Mr. Frawley, but I also require less of you.... So much less that father will scarcely expect me to play any more accompaniments to your ‘necklaces of precious tones’—so much less that the minimum of my interest in you vanishes to absolute negation.... So I shall not marry you.”
“Aphrodite—are—are you mad?”
Her sulky red mouth was mute.
Meanwhile the poet’s rich, resonant voice filled the studio with an agreeable and rambling monotone:
“Verse is a vehicle for expression; expression is a vehicle for verse; sound, in itself, is so subtly saturated with meaning that it requires nothing of added logic for its vindication. Sound, therefore, is sense, modified by the mysterious portent of tone. Thank you for understanding, thank you for a thought—very, very precious, a thought beautiful.”