Hauksbee
to wear at the dance at Viceregal Lodge that
night.
night.
Kipling - Poems
I don't believe
he'd ever kissed a woman in his life before. I threw my head back, and
it was a sort of slidy, pecking dab, just on the end of the chin--here. "
Mrs. Hauksbee tapped her masculine little chin with her fan. "Then, of
course, I was furiously angry, and told him that he was no gentleman,
and I was sorry I'd ever met him, and so on. He was crushed so easily
that I couldn't be very angry. Then I came away straight to you. "
"Was this before or after supper? "
"Oh! before--oceans before. Isn't it perfectly disgusting? "
"Let me think. I withhold judgment till tomorrow. Morning brings
counsel. "
But morning brought only a servant with a dainty bouquet of Annandale
roses for Mrs.
Hauksbee to wear at the dance at Viceregal Lodge that
night.
"He doesn't seem to be very penitent," said Mrs. Mallowe. "What's the
billet-doux in the centre? "
Mrs. Hauksbee opened the neatly folded note,--another accomplishment
that she had taught Otis,--read it, and groaned tragically.
"Last wreck of a feeble intellect! Poetry! Is it his own, do you think?
Oh, that I ever built my hopes on such a maudlin idiot! "
"No. It's a quotation from Mrs. Browning, and, in view of the facts of
the case, as Jack says, uncommonly well chosen. Listen:
"'Sweet thou has trod on a heart--
Pass! There's a world full of men
And women as fair as thou art,
Must do such things now and then.
"'Thou only hast stepped unaware--
Malice not one can impute;
And why should a heart have been there,
In the way of a fair woman's foot?
he'd ever kissed a woman in his life before. I threw my head back, and
it was a sort of slidy, pecking dab, just on the end of the chin--here. "
Mrs. Hauksbee tapped her masculine little chin with her fan. "Then, of
course, I was furiously angry, and told him that he was no gentleman,
and I was sorry I'd ever met him, and so on. He was crushed so easily
that I couldn't be very angry. Then I came away straight to you. "
"Was this before or after supper? "
"Oh! before--oceans before. Isn't it perfectly disgusting? "
"Let me think. I withhold judgment till tomorrow. Morning brings
counsel. "
But morning brought only a servant with a dainty bouquet of Annandale
roses for Mrs.
Hauksbee to wear at the dance at Viceregal Lodge that
night.
"He doesn't seem to be very penitent," said Mrs. Mallowe. "What's the
billet-doux in the centre? "
Mrs. Hauksbee opened the neatly folded note,--another accomplishment
that she had taught Otis,--read it, and groaned tragically.
"Last wreck of a feeble intellect! Poetry! Is it his own, do you think?
Oh, that I ever built my hopes on such a maudlin idiot! "
"No. It's a quotation from Mrs. Browning, and, in view of the facts of
the case, as Jack says, uncommonly well chosen. Listen:
"'Sweet thou has trod on a heart--
Pass! There's a world full of men
And women as fair as thou art,
Must do such things now and then.
"'Thou only hast stepped unaware--
Malice not one can impute;
And why should a heart have been there,
In the way of a fair woman's foot?