O wild world! Mote in a burning ray
Flung from the spherical Heavens millions of spaces away--
Sink in the ether or soar! Live with the planets or die!--
What should I care for your fate, who am one with the Infinite Sky!
"What strange song is that?" I asked, startled and thrilled by the
passion of his voice--"It seems to mean nothing!"
He laughed, and took my arm.
"It does mean nothing!" he said--"All drawing-room songs mean nothing.
Mine is a drawing-room song--calculated to waken emotional impulses in
the unloved spinster religiously inclined!"
"Nonsense!" I said, smiling.
"Exactly! That is what I say. It _is_ nonsense!" Here we came up to the
carriage which waited for us--"Just twenty minutes to catch the train,
Geoffrey! Off we go!"
And off we did go,--I watching the red gabled roofs of Willowsmere Court
shining in the late sunshine, till a turn in the road hid them from
view.
"You like your purchase?" queried Lucio presently.
"I do. Immensely!"
"And your rival, Mavis Clare? Do you like her?"