dead days
Theocritus have hymned you in glad Greek;
But I am not as they--and dare not speak
Of you unworthily, and dare not praise
Perfection with imperfect roundelays,
And desecrate the prize I dare to seek._

"_I do not woo you, then, by fashioning
Vext similes of you and Guenevere,
And durst not come with agile lips that bring
The sugared periods of a sonneteer,
And bring no more--but just with lips that cling
To yours, and murmur against them, 'I love you, dear!'_"

For Richard had resolved that Branwen should believe him. Tinsel,
indeed! then here was yet more tinsel which she must and should receive
as gold. He was very angry, because his vanity was hurt, and the
pin-prick spurred him to a counterfeit so specious that consciously he
gloried in it. He was superb, and she believed him now; there was no
questioning the fact, he saw it plainly, and with exultant cruelty; and
curt as lightning came the knowledge that she believed the absolute
truth.

Richard had taken just two strides, and toward this fair girl. Branwen
stayed motionless, her lips a little parted. The affairs of earth and
heaven were motionless throughout the moment, attendant, it seemed to
him; and his whole life was like a wave, to him, that trembled now at
full height, and he was aware of a new world all made of beauty and of
pity. Then the lute snapped between his fingers, and Richard
shuddered, and his countenance was the face of a man only.

"There is a task," he said, hoarsely--"it is God's work, I think. But
I do not know--I only know that you are very beautiful, Branwen," he
said, and in the name he found a new and piercing loveliness.

More lately he said: "Go! For I have loved so many women, and, God
help me! I know that I have but to wheedle you and you, too, will
yield! Yonder is God's work to be done, and within me rages a
commonwealth of devils. Child! child!" he cried in agony, "I am, and
ever was, a coward, too timid to face life without reserve, and always
I laughed because I was afraid to concede that anything is serious!"

For a long while Richard lay at his ease in the lengthening shadows of
the afternoon.

"I love her. She thinks me an elderly imbecile with a flat and reedy
singing-voice, and she is perfectly right. She has never even
entertained the notion of loving me. That is well, for to-morrow, or,
it may be, the day after, we must part forever. I would not have the