People were breathing thickly; the poet unaffectedly distilled the suggested tear; it was a fat tear; it ran smoothly down his nose, twinkled, trembled, and fell.
Aphrodite’s features had become tense; she half rose, hesitated. Then, as the young man in the stock turned his invalid’s eyes in her direction and began:
Oh, sixteen tears
In sixteen years——
she transfixed her hat with one nervous gesture sprang to her feet, turned, and vanished through the door.
“She is too young to endure it,” sobbed the by-product to her of the sketchy face. And that was no idle epigram, either.
[ XIV]
