eyes with one hand as though locked in
jiu-jitsu with Richard Strauss.

Aphrodite's slender fingers, barely resting on the harp-strings,
suddenly contracted in a nervous tremor; a low twang echoed the
involuntary reflex with a discord.

A young man, whose neck was swathed in a stock a la d'Orsay, bent close
to her shoulder.

"I feel that our souls, blindfolded, are groping toward one another,"
he whispered.

"Don't--don't talk like that!" she breathed almost fiercely; "I am
tired--suffocated with sound, drugged with joss-sticks and sandal.
I can't stand much more, I warn you."

"Are you not well, beloved."

"Perfectly well--physically. I don't know what it is--it has come so
suddenly--this overwhelming revulsion--this exasperation with scents and
sounds.... I could rip out these harp-strings and--and kick that chair
over! I--I think I need something--sunlight and the wind blowing my hair
loose----"

[Illustration:
Aphrodite's slender fingers, barely resting on the harp-strings,
suddenly contracted in a nervous tremor.]

The young man with the stock nodded. "It is the exquisite pagan athirst
in you, scorched by the fire of spring. Quench that sweet thirst at the
fount beautiful----"

"What fount did you say?" she asked dangerously.

"The precious fount of verse, dear maid."

"No!" she whispered violently. "I'm half drowned already. Words, smells,
sounds, attitudes, rocking-chairs--and candles profaning the sunshine--I
am suffocated, I need more air, more sense and less incense--less sound,
less art----"

"Less--_what_?" he gasped.

"Less art!--what you call 'l'arr'!--yes, I've said it; I'm sick! sick of
art! I know what I require now." And as he remained agape in shocked
silence: "I don't mean to be rude, Mr. Frawley, but I also require less
of you.... So much less that father will scarcely expect me to play any
more accompaniments to your 'necklaces of precious tones'--so much less
that the minimum of my interest in you vanishes to absolute negation....
So I shall not marry you."

"Aphrodite--are--are you mad?"

Her sulky red mouth was mute.

Meanwhile the poet's rich, resonant voice filled the studio with an
agreeable and rambling monotone:

"Verse is a vehicle for expression; expression is a vehicle for verse;
sound, in itself, is so subtly saturated with meaning that it requires
nothing of added logic for its vindication. Sound, therefore, is sense,
modified by the mysterious portent o