Three Weeks

He was only held back by the fear of the danger for her. And instead of being with her, and waiting on her footsteps, he should have to spend his next hours with those ridiculous Englishwomen! Those foolish, flippant girls! One had quoted poetry to him at dinner, the very scrap his lady had spoken a line of--this new poet's, who was taking the world of London by storm that year: "Loved with a love beyond all words or sense!" And it had sounded like bathos or sacrilege. What did these dolls know of love, or life? Chattering parrots to weary a man's brain! Yes, the Greeks were right, it would be better to keep them spinning flax, and uneducated.

And so in his young intolerance, maddened by pain, he saw all things gibbous like the mocking moon. Pike stirred under his arm and licked his hand, a faint whine of love making itself heard in the night.

"O God!" said Paul, as he buried his face in his hands, "let me get through this time as she would have me do; let me not show the anguish in my heart, but be at least a man and gentleman."