“You was saying that this man Swinburne failed bein’ a great poet because—­an’ that was as far as you got, miss,” he prompted, while to himself he seemed suddenly hungry, and delicious little thrills crawled up and down his spine at the sound of her laughter.  Like silver, he thought to himself, like tinkling silver bells; and on the instant, and for an instant, he was transported to a far land, where under pink cherry blossoms, he smoked a cigarette and listened to the bells of the peaked pagoda calling straw-sandalled devotees to worship.

“Yes, thank you,” she said.  “Swinburne fails, when all is said, because he is, well, indelicate.  There are many of his poems that should never be read.  Every line of the really great poets is filled with beautiful truth, and calls to all that is high and noble in the human.  Not a line of the great poets can be spared without impoverishing the world by that much.”

“I thought it was great,” he said hesitatingly, “the little I read.  I had no idea he was such a—­a scoundrel.  I guess that crops out in his other books.”

“There are many lines that could be spared from the book you were reading,” she said, her voice primly firm and dogmatic.

“I must ‘a’ missed ’em,” he announced.  “What I read was the real goods.  It was all lighted up an’ shining, an’ it shun right into me an’ lighted me up inside, like the sun or a searchlight.  That’s the way it landed on me, but I guess I ain’t up much on poetry, miss.”

He broke off lamely.  He was confused, painfully conscious of his inarticulateness.  He had felt the bigness and glow of life in what he had read, but his speech was inadequate.  He could not express what he felt, and to himself he likened himself to a sailor, in a strange ship, on a dark night, groping about in the unfamiliar running rigging.  Well, he decided, it was up to him to get acquainted in this new world.  He had never seen anything that he couldn’t get the hang of when he wanted to and it was about time for him to want to learn to talk the things that were inside of him so that she could understand. She was bulking large on his horizon.

“Now Longfellow—­” she was saying.

“Yes, I’ve read ’m,” he broke in impulsively, spurred on to exhibit and make the most of his little store of book knowledge, desirous of showing her that he was not wholly a stupid clod. “‘The Psalm of Life,’ ‘Excelsior,’ an’ . . .  I guess that’s all.”

She nodded her head and smiled, and he felt, somehow, that her smile was tolerant, pitifully tolerant.  He was a fool to attempt to make a pretence that way.  That Longfellow chap most likely had written countless books of poetry.

“Excuse me, miss, for buttin’ in that way.  I guess the real facts is that I don’t know nothin’ much about such things.  It ain’t in my class.  But I’m goin’ to make it in my class.”

It sounded like a threat.  His voice was determined, his eyes were flashing, the lines of his face had grown harsh.  And to her it seemed that the angle of his jaw had changed; its pitch had become unpleasantly aggressive.  At the same time a wave of intense virility seemed to surge out from him and impinge upon her.