de a face.
"How wonderfully she expresses the feeling of homesickness," observed
the gentleman seated in E 10.
"How wonderfully she expresses the feeling of wanderlust," observed the
gentleman seated in M 7.
XXXII
THE LARIAT
A lonely dreamer, dreaming under the poplars of a far hill, saw Love
dancing in the bright valley and casting promiscuously about her a
lariat of silk and roses. That he, too, might feel the soft caress of
the lariat about him, the dreamer clambered down into the gay valley and
there made eyes at Love. And Love, seeing, whirled her lariat high above
her and deftly twirled it 'round the dreamer. And as in Love's hand the
lariat of silk and roses fell about him and drew tighter and tighter
about his arms and legs, the dreamer saw it slowly turn before his eyes
into a band of solid steel.
XXXIII
THE ANALYST
A little girl loved her doll dearly: it was to her very real and very
human.
One day a little girl living next door told her the doll was only filled
with cotton. And the little girl cried.
When the other little girl had gone, the little girl got out a scissors
and determined to find out if her doll was, after all, not real and
human, but only filled with cotton, as the little neighbour girl had
said.
The little girl cut her doll open, and found that it was filled with
sawdust.
XXXIV
COUPLET
Again Mephisto chuckled in anticipation.
Somewhere, a little country girl, for the first time, was powdering her
nose.
XXXV
THE PHILOSOPHER
They had quarrelled.
Suddenly, her eyes flashing, she turned on him. "You think you are sure
of me, don't you?" she cried. And in her tone at once were defiance and
irony.
But the man vouchsafed nothing in reply. For he well enough knew that
when a woman flings that question at a man, the woman herself already
knows deep in her heart that the man is--perfectly.
XXXVI
ROSEMARY
In the still of the late December twilight, the old bachelor fumbled his
way to the far corner of the great attic and from an old trunk drew
falteringly forth a packet of letters. And pressing the letters tenderly
in his hands, sighed. For, anyway, _she_ had loved him in those years
ago, the years when youth was at its noontide and the stars seemed
always near. Memory, sweet and faithful mistress....
The old bachelor fumbled for his spectacles. Alas, he had left them
below. And without them he could not
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