Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/44

32 the moss, stroking with one finger-tip a cockchafer that was perched upon another, and regarding the little monster with intent, meditative eyes. She wore a frock the bodice part of which was all drooping creamy lace; she had thrown her hat and gloves aside; her hair was in some slight, soft disarray; her loose sleeve had fallen back, disclosing a very perfect wrist, and the beginning of a smooth white arm. Altogether she made an extremely pleasing picture, sweetly, warmly feminine. Ferdinand Augustus stood still, and watched her for an instant, before he spoke. Then

"I have come to intercede with you on behalf of your carp," he announced. "They are rending heaven with complaints of your desertion."

She looked up, with a whimsical, languid little smile. "Are they?" she asked lightly. "I'm rather tired of carp."

He shook his head sorrowfully. "You will permit me to admire your fine, frank disregard of their feelings."

"Oh, they have the past to remember," she said. "And perhaps some day I shall go back to them. For the moment I amuse myself very well with cockchafers. They're less tumultuous. And then carp won't come and perch on your finger. And then, one likes a change. Now fly away, fly away, fly away home; your house is on fire, and your children will burn," she crooned to the cockchafer, giving it never so gentle a push. But instead of flying away, it dropped upon the moss, and thence began to stumble, clumsily, blunderingly, towards the open meadow.

"You shouldn’t have caused the poor beast such a panic," he reproached her. "You should have broken the dreadful news gradually. As you see, your sudden blurting of it out has deprived him of the use of his faculties. Don’t believe her," he Rh