"
"Are you mad?" demanded the lady in almost stentorious accents, "or
is this an unmanly hoax?" Suddenly she stopped in undeniable
consternation. "Good heavens," she muttered, "if Abner should
believe this. He is SUCH a fool! He has lately been queer and
jealous. Oh dear!" she said, turning to Polly Jenkinson with the
first indication of feminine weakness, "Is he telling the truth? is
he crazy? what shall I do?"
Polly Jenkinson, who had witnessed the interview with the intensest
enjoyment, now rose equal to the occasion.
"You have made a mistake," she said, uplifting her demure blue eyes
to Don Jose's dark and melancholy gaze. "This lady is a POETESS!
The sufferings she depicts, the sorrows she feels, are in the
IMAGINATION, in her fancy only."
"Ah!" said Don Jose gloomily; "then it is all false."
"No," said Polly quickly, "only they are not her OWN, you know.
They are somebody elses. She only describes them for another,
don't you see?"
"And who, then, is this unhappy one?" asked the Don quickly.
"Well--a--friend," stammered Polly, hesitatingly.
"A friend!" repeated Don Jose. "Ah, I see, of possibility a dear
one, even," he continued, gazing with tender melancholy into the
untroubled cerulean depths of Polly's eyes, "even, but no, child,
it could not be! THOU art too young."
"Ah," said Polly, with an extraordinary gulp and a fierce nudge of
the poetess, "but it WAS me.
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