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114 And you fail utterly), by concluding thus An execrable marriage. Break it up, Disroot it—peradventure, presently, We’ll plant a better fortune in its place. Be good to me, Aurora, scorn me less For saying the thing I should not. Well I know I should not. I have kept, as others have, The iron rule of womanly reserve In lip and life, till now: I wept a week Before I came here.’—Ending, she was pale; The last words, haughtily said, were tremulous. This palfrey pranced in harness, arched her neck, And, only by the foam upon the bit, You saw she champed against it. Then I rose. ‘I love love: truth’s no cleaner thing than love. I comprehend a love so fiery hot It burns its natural veil of august shame, And stands sublimely in the nude, as chaste As Medicean Venus. But I know, A love that burns through veils, will burn through masks, And shrivel up treachery. What, love and lie! Nay—go to the opera! your love’s curable.’

‘I love and lie!’ she said—‘I lie, forsooth?’ And beat her taper foot upon the floor, And smiled against the shoe,—‘You’re hard, Miss Leigh, Unversed in current phrases.—Bowling-greens Of poets are fresher than the world’s highways; Forgive me that I rashly blew the dust