as blue as an austral bay.
Ladies, when loosing your evening array,
Reflect, had you lived in my years, my prayers
Might have won you from weakly lovers away--
My love was stronger and fiercer than theirs.

Through the song of the thrush and the pipe of the plover
Sweet voices come down through the binding lead;
O queens that every age must discover
For men, that man's delight may be fed;
Oh, sister queens to the queens I wed.
For the space of a year, a month, a day,
No thirst but mine could your thirst allay;
And oh, for an hour of life, my dears,
To kiss you, to laugh at your lovers' dismay--
My love was stronger and fiercer than theirs.

ENVOI
Prince was I ever of festival gay,
And time never silvered my locks with gray;
The love of your lovers is as hope that despairs,
So think of me sometimes, dear ladies, I pray--
My love was stronger and fiercer than theirs.

"It is like all your poetry--merely meretricious glitter; there is no
heart in it. That a man should like to have a nice mistress, a girl
he is really fond of, is simple enough, but lamentation over the
limbo of unborn loveliness is, to my mind, sheer nonsense."

Mike laughed.

"Of course it is silly, but I cannot alter it; it is the sex and not
any individual woman that attracts me. I enter a ball-room and I see
one, one whom I have never seen before, and I say, 'It is she whom I
have sought, I can love her.' I am always disappointed, but hope is
born again in every fresh face. Women are so common when they have
loved you."

Startled by his words, Mike strove to measure the thought.

"I can see nothing interesting in the fact that it is natural to you
to behave badly to every woman who gives you a chance of deceiving
her. That's what it amounts to. At the end of a week you'll tire of
this new girl as you did of the others. I think it a great shame. It
isn't gentlemanly."

Mike winced at the word "gentlemanly." For a moment he thought of
resentment, but his natural amiability predominated, and he said--

"I hope not. I really do think I can love this one; she isn't like
the others. Besides, I shall be much happier. There is, I know, a
great sweetness in constancy. I long for this sweetness." Seeing by
Frank's face that he was still angry, he pursued his thoughts in the
line which he fancied would be most agreeable; he did so without
violence to his feelings. It was as natural to