Page:Ann Veronica, a modern love story.djvu/68

 " 'A SONG OF LADIES AND MY LADY    " 'Saintly white and a lily is Mary, Margaret's violets, sweet and shy; Green and dewy is Nellie-bud fairy, Forget-me-nots live in Gwendolen's eye. Annabel shines like a star in the darkness, Rosamund queens it a rose, deep rose; But the lady I love is like sunshine in April weather,

She gleams and gladdens, she warms--and goes.'

"Crude, I admit. But let that verse tell my secret.  All bad verse--originally the epigram was Lang's, I believe--is written in a state of emotion.

"My dear Miss Stanley, when I talked to you the other afternoon of work and politics and such-like things, my mind was all the time resenting it beyond measure. There we were discussing whether you should have a vote, and I remembered the last occasion we met it was about your prospects of success in the medical profession or as a Government official such as a number of women now are, and all the time my heart was crying out within me, 'Here is the Queen of your career.'  I wanted, as I have never wanted before, to take you up, to make you mine, to carry you off and set you apart from all the strain and turmoil of life.  For nothing will ever convince me that it is not the man's share in life to shield, to protect, to lead and toil and watch and battle with the world at large.  I want to be your knight, your servant, your protector, your--I dare scarcely write the word--your husband.  So I come suppliant. I am five-and-thirty, and I have knocked about in the world and tasted the quality of life. I had a hard