Bref! I do.
JOHN.
One word . . . stay!
Are you really in love with Matilda?
ALFRED.
Love, eh?
What a question! Of course.
JOHN.
WERE you really in love
With Madame de Nevers?
ALFRED.
What; Lucile? No, by Jove,
Never REALLY.
JOHN.
She's pretty?
ALFRED.
Decidedly so.
At least, so she was, some ten summers ago.
As soft, and as sallow as Autumn--with hair
Neither black, nor yet brown, but that tinge which the air
Takes at eve in September, when night lingers lone
Through a vineyard, from beams of a slow-setting sun.
Eyes--the wistful gazelle's; the fine foot of a fairy;
And a hand fit a fay's wand to wave,--white and airy;
A voice soft and sweet as a tune that one knows.
Something in her there was, set you thinking of those
Strange backgrounds of Raphael . . . that hectic and deep
Brief twilight in which southern suns fall asleep.
JOHN.
Coquette?
ALFRED.
Not at all. 'Twas her one fault. Not she!
I had loved her the better, had she less loved me.
The heart of a man's like that delicate weed
Which requires to be trampled on, boldly indeed,
Ere it give forth the fragrance you wish to extract.
'Tis a simile, trust me, if not new, exact.
JOHN.
Women change so.
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