That evening, after Mrs. Bench had been tactfully dismissed for the night, the young blood Ardrath and his serious-minded companion took a long walk along the bay of Leghorn. “It was on this bay that Shelley lost his life while sailing,” recited George with the air of a very efficient but somehow uninspiring courier. “In his pocket was a book of his friend Keats’s poems, doubled back at the one called ‘St. Agnes’s Eve’. You know—‘St. Agnes’s Eve, ah, bitter chill it was!’”
“How romantic!” offered Irma. “I suppose you’d like to be drowned here too, and be cremated like Sam McGee (blasphemous thought!).”
They walked on in silence for a few minutes. George was trying to remember the next lines of “St. Agnes’s Eve”, as he termed it. Irma was trying to decide whether she really still liked George or not. Somehow the month’s separation which had just ended had cooled their ardor considerably—on her part, at least.
“Shelley, in a way, must have been rather wet,” said Ardrath after the pause. “He was unpopular at Oxford; they threw mud at him one night when he became particularly obnoxious to the conservative students, and insisted upon advocating atheism to his comrades.”
“Oh, but we’re all wet one way or the other, George, don’t you think? Shelley may not have been the man you are, but he wrote better poetry.” This last with a tinge of irony that did its work.
“You’re making fun of me, Irma. You don’t think I’m a bit sincere in anything I say.”
“Not at all. There were a lot of things you said to me on the boat which I believed were sincere.”
“Don’t you still think so?”
“Not entirely. I have an idea that you were more or less posing when you said them—that you let yourself think they were true, just for the sake of being romantically clever.”