Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/337

Rh To hear that Vincent was betrothed to Kate. With what cracked pitchers go we to deep wells In this world! Then I spoke,—’I did not think, My cousin, you had ever known Kate Ward.’

‘In fact I never knew her. ’Tis enough That Vincent did, before he chose his wife For other reasons than those topaz eyes I’ve heard of. Not to undervalue them, For all that. One takes up the world with eyes.’

—Including Romney Leigh, I thought again, Albeit he knows them only by repute. How vile must all men be, since he’s a man.

His deep pathetic voice, as if he guessed I did not surely love him, took the word; ‘You never got a letter from Lord Howe A month back, dear Aurora?’ ‘None,’ I said. ‘I felt it was so,’ he replied: ‘Yet, strange! Sir Blaise Delorme has passed through Florence?’ ‘Ay, By chance I saw him in Our Lady’s church, (I saw him, mark you, but he saw not me) Clean-washed in holy-water from the count Of things terrestrial,—letters and the rest; He had crossed us out together with his sins.