第183页 / 共490页

Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face, Else would a maiden

blush bepaint my cheek For that which thou hast heard me speak

to-night-

was declaimed with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has

been taught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution.

When she leaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful

lines-

Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract to-night:

It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; Too like the

lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say, "It lightens."

Sweet, good-night! This bud of love by summer's ripening breath

May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet-

she spoke the words as though they conveyed no meaning to her. It

was not nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she was

absolutely self-contained. It was simply bad art. She was a

complete failure.