She glanced at me with a smile in her eyes that reminded me, through I know not what subtle influence, of Spring, but as I was unresponsive she could not tell whether I was in earnest or was jesting.
I relapsed into silence and took my soup, feeling that I was getting decidedly the worst of it, when I heard her murmuring so softly as almost to appear speaking to herself:
"'The time has come,' the Walrus said,
'To talk of other things—
Of ships and shoes and sealing-wax,
And cabbages and Kings.'"
I glanced at her to find her eyes downcast, but a beguiling little dimple was flickering near the corners of her mouth and her long lashes caught me all anew. My heart gave a leap. It happened that I knew my Alice much better than my Dante, so when she said, "You can talk, can't you?" I answered quietly, and quite as if it were natural to speak in verse:
"'In my youth,' said his father, 'I took to the Law,
And argued each case with my wife,
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw
Has lasted the rest of my life.'"
She gave a little subdued gurgle of laughter as she took up the next verse:
"'You are old,' said the youth. 'One would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever,
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—
What made you so awfully clever?'"
I hoped that she was embarrassed when I found that she had taken my napkin by mistake, and she was undoubtedly so when she discovered that she had it.
"I beg your pardon," she said as she handed me hers.
I bowed.