“No no!—­not that!  Not that!” And Adderley gave a kind of serpentine writhe on the grass as he raised himself to a half-sitting posture—­ “Gentle Goblin, do not mistake me!  When I say that Miss Vancourt is unwritable, I would fain point out that she is above and beyond the reach of my Muse.  I cannot ‘experience’ her!  Yes—­that is so!  What a poet needs most is the flesh model.  The flesh model may be Susan, or Sarah, or Jane of the bar and tap-room,—­but she must have lips to kiss, hair to touch, form to caress—–­”

“Saint Moses!” cried Cicely, with an excited wriggle of her long legs—­“Must she?”

“She must!” declared Julian, with decision—­“Because when you have kissed the lips, you have experienced a ‘sensation,’ and you can write—­’Ah, how sweet the lips I love.’  You needn’t love them, of course,—­you merely try them.  She must be amenable and good-natured, and allow herself to be gazed at for an hour or so, till you decide the fateful colour of her eyes.  If they are blue, you can paraphrase George Meredith on the ‘Blue is the sky, blue is thine eye’ system—­ if black, you can recall the ’Lovely as the light of a dark eye in woman,’ of Byron.  She must allow you to freely encircle her waist with an arm, so that having felt the emotion you can write—­“How tenderly that yielding form, Thrills to my touch!’ And then,—­even as a painter who pays so much per hour for studying from the life,—­ you can go away and forget her—­or you can exaggerate her charms in rhyme, or ‘imagine’ that she is fairer than Endymion’s moon-goddess--for so long as she serves you thus she is useful,—­but once her uses are exhausted, the poet has done with her, and seeks a fresh sample.  Hence, as I say, your friend Miss Vancourt is above my clamour for the Beautiful.  I must content myself with some humbler type, and ‘imagine’ the rest!”

“Well, I should think you must, if that’s the way you go to work!” said Cicely, with eyes brimful of merriment and mischief—­“Why you are worse than the artists of the Quartier Latin!  If you must needs ‘experience’ your models, I wonder that Susan, Sarah and Jane of the bar and tap-room are good enough for you!”

“Any human female suffices,”—­murmured Julian, drowsily, “Provided she is amenable,—­and is not the mother of a large family.  At the spectacle of many olive branches, the Muse shrieks a wild farewell!” Cicely broke into a peal of laughter.

“You absurd creature!” she said—­“You don’t mean half the nonsense you talk—­you know you don’t!”

“Do I not?  But then, what do I mean?  Am I justified in assuming that I mean anything?” And he again ran his fingers through his ruddy locks abstractedly.  “No,—­I think not!  Therefore, if I now make a suggestion, pray absolve me from any serious intentions underlying it—­and yet—–­”

“’And yet’—­what?” queried Cicely, looking at him with some curiosity.

“Ah!  ‘And yet’!  Such little words, ’and yet’!” he murmured—­“They are like the stepping-stones across a brook which divides one sweet woodland dell from another!  ’And yet’!” He sighed profoundly, and plucking a daisy from the turf, gazed into its golden heart meditatively.  “What I would say, gentle Goblin, is this,—­you call me Moon-calf, therefore there can be no objection to my calling you Goblin, I think?”