Page:Tales of the long bow.pdf/47

 for nothing that he had built gradually about him that garden of the grey stone fountain and the great hedge of yew. He bent suddenly and kissed her hand.

"I like that," she said. "You ought to have powdered hair and a sword."

"I apologize," he said gravely, "no modern man is worthy of you. But indeed I fear, in every sense I am not a very modern man."

"You must never wear that hat again," she said, indicating the battered original topper.

"To tell the truth," he observed mildly, "I had not any intention of resuming that one."

"Silly," she said briefly, "I don't mean that hat; I mean that sort of hat. As a matter of fact, there couldn't be a finer hat than the cabbage."

"My dear" he protested; but she was looking at him quite seriously.

"I told you I was an artist, and didn't know much about literature," she said. "Well, do you know, it really does make a difference. Literary people let words get between them and things. We do at least look at the things and not the names of the things. You think a cabbage is comic because the name sounds comic and even vulgar; something between 'cab' and 'garbage,' I suppose. But a cabbage isn't really