urse they would BOTH love each other, or it
wouldn't be real love well, what _I_ say is, if it's REAL love, well,
it's--it's sacred, because I think that kind of love is always sacred.
Don't you think love is sacred if it's the real thing?"

"Ess," said Miss Pratt. "Do Flopit again. Be Flopit!"

"Berp-werp! Berp-werp-werp."

And within the library an agonized man writhed and muttered:

"WORD! WORD! WORD--"

This hoarse repetition had become almost continuous.

... But out on the porch, that little, jasmine-scented bower in
Arcady where youth cried to youth and golden heads were haloed in the
moonshine, there fell a silence. Not utter silence, for out there an
ethereal music sounded constantly, unheard and forgotten by older ears.
Time was when the sly playwrights used "incidental music" in their
dramas; they knew that an audience would be moved so long as the music
played; credulous while that crafty enchantment lasted. And when the
galled Mr. Parcher wondered how those young people out on the porch
could listen to each other and not die, it was because he did not
hear and had forgotten the music that throbs in the veins of youth.
Nevertheless, it may not be denied that despite his poor memory this man
of fifty was deserving of a little sympathy.

It was William who broke the silence. "How--" he began, and his voice
trembled a little. "How--how do you--how do you think of me when I'm not
with you?"

"Think nice-cums," Miss Pratt responded. "Flopit an' me think
nice-cums."

"No," said William; "I mean what name do you have for me when you're
when you're thinking about me?"

Miss Pratt seemed to be puzzled, perhaps justifiably, and she made a
cooing sound of interrogation.

"I mean like this," William explained. "F'rinstance, when you first
came, I always thought of you as 'Milady'--when I wrote that poem, you
know."

"Ess. Boo'fums."

"But now I don't," he said. "Now I think of you by another name when I'm
alone. It--it just sort of came to me. I was kind of just sitting around
this afternoon, and I didn't know I was thinking about anything at all
very much, and then all of a sudden I said it to myself out loud. It was
about as strange a thing as I ever knew of. Don't YOU think so?"

"Ess. It uz dest WEIRD!" she answered. "What ARE dat pitty names?"

"I called you," said William, huskily and reverently, "I called you 'My
Baby-Talk Lady.'"

BANG!

They were startled by a crash from within the librar