"Wouldn't you accept Thusis as she chose to offer herself?" he insisted.
A pang shot through me:
"Good Lord, yes!" I said. "I'd marry her if she were a beggar or a
convict or the least creature of her sex. I'd never ask a question; I'd
take thankfully and happily what she offered. You are right,
Smith--wonderfully right. If you love, love! If you don't, worry!"
"Quite right," he said; "it's either love or worry; the genuine article
doesn't admit of both. If you really love you are satisfied; if you
worry it isn't love--it's merely something resembling it. Love is
specific; there are sub-species and varieties, none the real thing. The
acid test of love is contentment; baser metal dissolves in trouble, and
the sediment is worry. I----"
"Oh, shut up!" I burst out, nervously; "you're too darned eloquent on
the subject. Besides," I added with a perfectly new and instinctive
suspicion, "you're so confoundedly contented with yourself that I
believe you have begun to guess the identity of Clelia, and that it
pleases you enormously!"
He reddened.
"_Have_ you any idea who she is?" I insisted.
"A vague idea."
"And that vague idea pleases you?"
"It does," he said with a shy sort of grin.
That was too much for me. "Go to Guinea!" said I, resuming my pen and
paper and paying him no further attention.
Clelia came for orders, sweet and serious in her garb of service. Again
I laid aside my poem to Thusis.
"I am glad," said I, camouflaging my melancholy with a sprightly allure,
"that you have renounced kidnaping kings and have decided to kidnap Mr.
Smith instead."
She didn't seem to think it was funny. The newly engaged lack humor.
"Josephine," she said with dignity, "suggests this supper-card." And
she handed me the written sheet.
"Fine!" said I. "Stuff 'em till they're unconscious and we'll have
peace."
At that she laughed.
"Josephine desires to know what time the party is to begin," she said.
"It begins with dinner, Clelia. They all come in costume. After dinner
they play games. Supper at midnight. Then they dance--God help them."
"The Bolsheviki, too?"
"That's another breed of cat," said I. "I haven't the faintest idea
what they intend to do. All I know is that they're not coming to the
party. So give them a table by themselves in their rooms half an hour
before we dine. Otherwise those chattering apes are likely to spoil the
party."
She agreed with me.
After she had departed I began again on my poem called "Nobody Home":
"She who, risen from the sea,--
Body fashioned from its foam,--
Once appeared to favor me,
Now has left me all alone:--
When I call she's not at home;
Silent are the Temple closes
Where her priestess used to roam
Smiling at me, crowned with roses
Underneath the Temple's dome;
So I stand outside alone.
From the dead fire on her altar
Now I turn away and falter:
Aphrodite's not at home.
Goddess born of sun and sea,
Goddess born of sea and sun,
Blue-eyed Venus pity me,
I would wed my Dearest One:--
She denies; and I'm undone!"--
Just here I found myself in difficulties: the verse called for two more
words to rhyme with "sun," and the available ones already unused
included such words as bun, dun, fun, gun, hun, nun, pun, run, shun,
ton, and won--at least these were all I could think of--none among them
available for classical purposes.
Much disturbed I sat consulting my Rhyming Dictionary and smoking a
cigarette without relish, when a terrific screaming from the Princess
Pudelstoff's apartment brought me to my feet and out into the corridor.
The Princess stood in the hallway wringing her hands and almost dancing
with rage and fright while, from their doorway across the hall, Puppsky
and Wildkatz jabbered at her in apparent fury.
"What the dickens is all this!" I demanded angrily.
"They've got cooties!" she screamed. "I suspected it! I knew it! All
Bolsheviki have 'em! Don't let 'em near me! Lock 'em up and turn the
gas on! Make 'em take baths! They don't want to, but make 'em!"
"What do you mean?" said I, feeling suddenly ill and pale.
"I mean what I say!" she cried, wringing her jeweled hands. "They've
got 'em but we don't have to have 'em! We ain't in the trenches, thank
God! No, nor we ain't in Rooshia where them things is family pets! I
d-don't want any! I don't want any even from my own brother----"