Presently I had news for the Sphinx.  ’The rose-tree that grows in the garden of my mind,’ I said, ‘desires to blossom.’

‘May it blossom indeed,’ she replied; ’for it has been flowerless all this long evening; and bring me a rose fresh with all the dews of inspiration—­no florist’s flower, wired and artificially scented, no bloom of yesterday’s hard-driven brains.’

‘I was only thinking,’ I said, ’a propos of nightingales and roses, that though all the world has heard the song of the nightingale to the rose, only the nightingale has heard the answer of the rose.  You know what I mean?’

‘Know what you mean!  Of course, that’s always easy enough,’ retorted the Sphinx, who knows well how to be hard on me.

‘I’m so glad,’ I ventured to thrust back; ’for lucidity is the first success of expression:  to make others see clearly what we ourselves are struggling to see, believe with all their hearts what we are just daring to hope, is—­well, the religion of a literary man!’

‘Yes! it’s a pretty idea,’ said the Sphinx, once more pressing the rose of my thought to her brain; ‘and indeed it’s more than pretty ...’

‘Thank you!’ I said humbly.

’Yes, it’s true—­and many a humble little rose will thank you for it.  For, your nightingale is a self-advertising bird.  He never sings a song without an eye on the critics, sitting up there in their stalls among the stars.  He never, or seldom, sings a song for pure love, just because he must sing it or die.  Indeed, he has a great fear of death, unless—­you will guarantee him immortality.  But the rose, the trusting little earth-born rose, that must stay all her life rooted in one spot till some nightingale comes to choose her—­some nightingale whose song maybe has been inspired and perfected by a hundred other roses, which are at the moment pot-pourri—­ah, the shy bosom-song of the rose ...’

Here the Sphinx paused, and added abruptly—­

‘Well—­there is no nightingale worthy to hear it!’

‘It is true,’ I agreed, ‘O trusting little earth-born rose!’

‘Do you know why the rose has thorns?’ suddenly asked the Sphinx.  Of course I knew, but I always respect a joke, particularly when it is but half-born—­humourists always prefer to deliver themselves—­so I shook my head.

‘To keep off the nightingales, of course,’ said the Sphinx, the tone of her voice holding in mocking solution the words ‘Donkey’ and ’Stupid,’—­which I recognised and meekly bore.

‘What an excellent idea!’ I said.  ’I never thought of it before.  But don’t you think it’s a little unkind?  For, after all, if there were no nightingales, one shouldn’t hear so much about the rose; and there is always the danger that if the rose continues too painfully thorny, the nightingale may go off and seek, say, a more accommodating lily.’

‘I have no opinion of lilies,’ said the Sphinx.

‘Nor have I,’ I answered soothingly; ’I much prefer roses—­but ... but....’