Clifford Bax

“ Yours, Harry—with a nasty scar.
'P.S.—The cut's above the knee,
And won't be right just yet, I fear
Oh, and what price you marrying me?
Anything doing? Let me hear.
Ring up to-morrow, if you're home.
Where shall we do our bunk? To Rome?'
Now, wasn't that enough to make me mad?
It is a shame! It really is too bad!
'Dear Hilda'—plain 'dear'! And what girl could marry
A man who, when proposing, ends 'yours, Harry'?
Gioconda.
I love his downright manner. In my mind
I see him, a tall figure; and, behind,
His old two-seater. Yes, I see him plainly—
Close-cropped—
Hilda. ”

“ Lest by thy gentle hand be hurled
The mortal bolt that leaves no scar.
'So prays upon his aching knee
Thy humble vassal, once the fear
Of Christendom, but now—woe's me!—
One whose wild prayers Love will not hear,
Who treads the earth and has no home—
Giulio Pandolfo, Duke of Rome.'
Hilda.
Gioconda, what a lover!
Gioconda.
So I think— His brain a dictionary, his blood mere ink.
Hilda.
Oh, but I mean how fine a lover! Would
That mine could pen a letter half so good!
Gioconda.
How does he write?
Hilda.
Write! Would you deign to call That 'writing'—this illiterate blotted scrawl? ”

“ She tosses the pipe and stick off, left.
There! Did I play it well? You'd be my wife?
Hilda (sighing) .
My dear, you played old Harry to the life—
His gaucherie...
Gioconda.
His noble self-command...
Hilda.
The way he shifts his cane from hand to hand...
Gioconda.
A nervous trick that shows how much he feels...
Hilda.
All I know is—I'd have a man who kneels
And pours out passion in a style as rippling
As the best Swinburne—or at least as Kipling.
Gioconda. ”