Page:Maurine and Other Poems (1910).pdf/6

 She’s coming out to see me; and will stay Till Autumn, maybe. She is, like her note, Petite and dainty, tender, loving, pure. You’d know her by a letter that she wrote, For a sweet tinted thing. ’Tis always so:— Letters all blots, though finely written, show A slovenly person. Letters stiff and white Bespeak a nature honest, plain, upright. And tissuey, tinted, perfumed notes, like this, Tell of a creature formed to pet and kiss.” My listener heard me with a slow, odd smile; Stretched in abandon at my feet, the while, He fanned me idly with his broad-brimmed hat. “Then all young ladies must be formed for that!” He laughed, and said. “Their letters read, and look, As like as twenty copies of one book. They’re written in a dainty, spider scrawl, To ‘darling, precious Kate,’ or ‘Fan,’ or ‘Moll.’ The ‘dearest, sweetest’ friend they ever had. They say they ‘want to see you, oh, so bad!’ Vow they’ll ‘forget you, never, never, oh!’ And then they tell about a splendid beau— A lovely hat—a charming dress, and send A little scrap of this to every friend. And then to close, for lack of something better, They beg you’ll ‘read and burn this horrid letter.’”

He watched me, smiling. He was prone to vex And hector me with flings upon my sex. He liked, he said, to have me flash and frown, So he could tease me, and then laugh me down. My storms of wrath amused him very much: He liked to see me go off at a touch; Anger became me—made my colour rise, And gave an added lustre to my eyes. So he would talk—and so he watched me now, To see the hot flush mantle cheek and brow. Instead, I answered coolly, with a smile, Felling a seam with utmost care, meanwhile. “The caustic tongue of Vivian Dangerfield Is barbed as ever, for my sex, this morn. Still unconvinced, no smallest point I yield. Woman I love, and trust, despite your scorn. There is some truth in what you say? Well, yes!