But Rickets did not hear her.  His soul, soaring on wings of champagne, was borne far away from Dicky Pilkington.

    “Know” (chanted Rickets) “that the Love which is my Lord most high,
      He changeth not with seasons and with days,
      His feet are shod with light in all his ways. 
    And when he followeth none have power to fly.

    “He chooseth whom he will, and draweth nigh. 
      To them alone whom he himself doth raise
      Unto his perfect service and his praise;
    Of such Love’s lowliest minister am I.”

“If you’d asked me,” said Poppy, “I should have said he had a pretty good opinion of himself.  What do you say, Dicky?”

“Sweet!” sang the canary in one pure, penetrating note, the voice of Innocence itself.

“Isn’t he rakish?” But Poppy got no answer from the sonneteer.  He had wheeled round from her, carried away in the triumph and rapture of the sestette.  His steps marked the beat of the iambics, he turned on his heel at the end of every line.  For the moment he was sober, as men count sobriety.

“For he I serve hath paced Heaven’s golden floor,
And chanted with the Seraphims’ glad choir;
Lo!  All his wings are plumed with fervent fire;
He hath twain that bear him upward evermore,
With twain he veils his holy eyes before
The mystery of his own divine desire.

“Does it remind you of anything?” he asked.  It struck her as odd that he seemed to realize her presence with difficulty.

“No, I can’t say that I ever heard anything like it in my life.”

“Well, the idea’s bagged from Dante—­I mean Dante-gabrier-rossetti.  But he doesn’t want it as badly as I do.  In fac’, I don’ think he wants it at all where he is now.  If he does, he can take any of mine in exchange.  You bear me out, Poppy—­I invite the gentleman to step down and make ’s own s’lection:  Nobody can say I plagiarize anyborry—­anyborry but myself.”

“All right, don’t you worry, old chappy,” said Poppy soothingly.  “You come here and sit quiet.”

He came and sat down beside her, as if the evening had only just begun.  He sat down carefully, tenderly, lest he should crush so much as the hem of her fan-like, diaphanous skirts.  And then he began to talk to her.

He said there was no woman—­no lady—­in the world for whom he felt such reverence and admiration; “Pop-oppy,” he said, “you’re fit to dance before God on the floor of Heaven when they’ve swept it.”

“Oh come,” said Poppy, “can’t you go one better?”

He could.  He did.  He intimated that though he worshipped every hair of Poppy’s little head and every inch of Poppy’s little body, what held him, at the moment, were the fascinations of her mind, and the positively gorgeous beauty of her soul.  Yes; there could be no doubt that the object of his devotion was Poppy’s imperishable soul.

“Well,” said Poppy, “that tykes the very tip-top macaroon!”