Cupid's sway the very deuce is!
His caprices and abuses
All endure and all obey.
Laugh away my pretty Thusis
He'll get _you_ some summer day!
I re-read the Envoi with satisfaction born of the pride of prophecy.
Also, no doubt, some slight personal bitterness gave an agreeable tang
to the couplets.
"Clever,--very clever," said I, dotting a few i's and crossing several
t's. And, feeling better, I laid away the poem and began to walk up and
down the room exhilarated by my own genius.
"When a man," said I, "can turn out such verses"--I snapped my
fingers--"just like that!--he is in little danger of any sentimental
subjugation."
As I turned, my glance chanced to fall on The Laughing Girl, and, for
the first time, I thought I noticed a faint and delicate malice in her
laughing eyes.
"Good heavens," said I to myself, "how vividly she resembles Thusis!"
Oddly enough as I continued to walk to and fro in my room I began to
feel a trifle less gay, less confident regarding my prophetic poem
depicting the sentimental fate of Thusis.
"She's really very lovely," thought I, "and three-quarters devil.
She'll do mischief to man, yet. Probably she's already done a good deal
to some poor young man.... Poor simpleton! ... Unhappy simp!"