"Canst thou look upon His woes, and laugh to see a goddess' son Of wide dominion, and in strategy "More strong than Jove, more wise than Solomon, Inept to combat thy severity? Have pity, Sylvia! And let Love be one Among the folk that bear thee company."
"Is it not the very puling speech of your true lover?" he chuckled; and the flames spluttered assent. "Among the folk that bear thee company," he repeated, and afterward looked about him with a smack of gravity. "Faith, Adam Cupid hath forsworn my fellowship long since; he hath no score chalked up against him at the Boar's Head Tavern; or, if he have, I doubt not the next street-beggar might discharge it."
"And she hath commended me to her children as a very gallant gentleman and a true knight," Sir John went on, reflectively. He cast his eyes toward the ceiling, and grinned at invisible deities. "Jove that sees all hath a goodly commodity of mirth; I doubt not his sides ache at times, as if they had conceived another wine-god."
"Yet, by my honor," he insisted to the fire; then added, apologetically,--"if I had any, which, to speak plain, I have not,--I am glad; it is a brave jest; and I did love her once."
Then the time-battered, bloat rogue picked out another paper, and read: "'My dear lady,--That I am not with thee to-night is, indeed, no fault of mine; for Sir Thomas Mowbray hath need of me, he saith. Yet the service that I have rendered him thus far is but to cool my heels in his antechamber and dream of two great eyes and of that net of golden hair wherewith Lord Love hath lately snared my poor heart. For it comforts me--' And so on, and so on, the pen trailing most juvenal sugar, like a fly newly crept out of the honey-pot. And ending with a posy, filched, I warrant you, from some ring.
"I remember when I did write her this," he explained to the fire. "Lord, Lord, if the fire of grace were not quite out of me, now should I be moved. For I did write it; and it was sent with a sonnet, all of Hell, and Heaven, and your pagan gods, and other tricks of speech. It should be somewhere."
He fumbled with uncertain fingers among the papers. "Ah, here it is," he said at last, and he again began to read aloud.