"Oh, Lord!" said I, "that accounts for a lot of things! Why on earth I didn't suspect it I can't imagine——"
"Oh, I'm not typical; I'm international, Michael—cosmopolitan, inter-urban, anti-insular, so to speak——"
"You're inter-stellar, you beautiful bright star!——"
"Michael!"
"What?"
"Is that courtship? Or the other?" she inquired.
"Courtship. It's a perfectly proper flight of astronomical fancy. It's a scientific metaphor, Thusis dear. I'll tell you another:
"Some lovers woo the Pleiades
Who shyly flirt from midnight skies,
But all my vows and all my sighs
Are centered in the Cyclades
Where she I love first saw the light
—Thusis divine so slim and white—"
"Michael!"
"I love her noble mind serene,
I love her ruddy tresses bright,
I love her slender neck so white,
I love her heart so young and clean,
In fact I love her, if she please,
My goddess of the Cyclades—"