Know that love is a careless child,
And forgets the promise past:
He is blind, he is deaf when he list,
And in faith never fast.
His desire is a dureless content,
And a trustless joy;
He is won with a world of despair,
And is lost with a toy....”
Singing her mediæval tune, she is one with it, and one with the silver strings that leap from her songful fingers.
I watch Mildred, and Philip LaMotte by my side watches her: Philip LaMotte and I watch each other watching Mildred sing. We three are closest to the other room. At the room’s end away from us, beneath the lamp, sit my parents chatting with Doctor Stein. Close to the central window Mildred’s father plays a game of solitaire.