Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/154

142 in the matter of metaphysical psychology,—or anything else you like,—I shall proceed to admit that I was rude; and apologise accordingly.'

'I never asked you to apologise,' she said.

'I never said that you did, my dear—well, something or other.'

'You're very aggravating to-night, that's what you are!' 'Oh, Polyphemus and Abracadabra, did you ever hear such a libel as that?'

Rosy began to hum a tune shortly and defiantly.

After a little I said:

'Lady, it seemeth unto mine uncultured ear that thou warblest the melody of which men say the venerable vaccine one rendered up the ghost. Now' 'You're very cruel!' she suddenly sobbed. 'And I hate you. Why do you go on at me like that?… (The rest inarticulate.)

'God bless our souls!' cried I, standing still, 'if' And I proceeded in a brotherly way to comfort her. And so at last got her in a rather limp state to No. 3, where we said a final good-night after I had promised to write and tell her when I could get time to go for another walk.

If it had not been for my recalling friend Horace to the effect that 'Dulce est desipere in loco,' I should have been in a most disconsolate humour going home. As it was, I could not help laughing at the memory of my fantastic squabble.

The next entry in the Journal is a record of my having seen, or thought I had seen, at a theatre the girl of the nuts, her who struck me so on the night of my interview with Colonel James, (She was playing a second part in a 'realistic drama,' and not playing it badly, it seemed to me.)

'I was with the Strachans in a box made for two people to see comfortably in, and three others to be as miserable as they disliked. I asked the Professor, when we two went out for a stroll in the passages during an entr' acte, if he had seen her before, and he said that he had not.

'I should like to know her. She might marry me