"Are you _very_ angry, Don Michael?"--sorrowful but subtly persuasive.
"I've ruined this rod," said I.
"You may take mine," humbly sweet.
But I feared her gifts and her contrition.
A light breath--a ghost of a sigh escaped her.
"I'm such a beast," she said.... "But I've never before taken the
trouble to be beastly to a man--if that flatters you at all, Don
Michael."
"It does not," said I, coolly.
"It should," she retorted.
"Do you know what I think?" said I, turning, after the manner of other
worms.
"What?"
"I think you overestimate your own importance. And that you'd be far
more attractive if you were not too bally busy thinking about yourself
every minute."
"If that is your opinion," she said, "we had better go home at once."
We went, in solemn silence.
*VIII*
*THE KNEES OF THE GODS*
The afternoon was growing very warm. Smith had stretched himself out on
his bed to read a novel and combat flies. Occasionally he called out to
me demanding to know how soon we were going to have tea by the fountain.
Which incessantly reiterated question put me out of humor--for I was
writing another poem--and presently I got up, cursed him out, and
slammed the door.
Recently something--whatever it was--had driven me pell-mell toward
Parnassus.
As a matter of record, until I had purchased that photograph of The
Laughing Girl, I had never before written a poem or attempted to write
one, or even considered such an enterprise.
Nor had I most remotely suspected myself capable of producing poetry.
Neither had I, hitherto, desired to so express my thoughts and private
emotions. Of what serious people call the "Urge" I had, hitherto, been
ignorant.
But since the photograph of The Laughing Girl had come into my
possession, hidden springs totally unsuspected had begun to gush and
bubble somewhere deep within me. And, to my pleased astonishment, I
suddenly found myself not only endowed with the desire but also with the
ability to rhyme.
And now on this warm, quiet, flyful afternoon, and still considerably
upset over my morning on the trout stream with Thusis, I found myself at
my table, abandoning myself to an orgy of self-expression in verse.
Having slammed the door I now returned to my poem; and first I carefully
re-read as much of it as I had accomplished: