AMORY WRITES A POEM

The weeks tore by. Amory wandered occasionally to New York on the chance of finding a new shining green auto-bus, that its stick-of-candy glamour might penetrate his disposition.

One day he ventured into a stock-company revival of a play whose name was faintly familiar. The curtain rose—he watched casually as a girl entered.

A few phrases rang in his ear and touched a faint chord of memory. Where—? When—?

Then he seemed to hear a voice whispering beside him, a very soft, vibrant voice: “Oh, I’m such a poor little fool; do tell me when I do wrong.”

The solution came in a flash and he had a quick, glad memory of Isabelle.

He found a blank space on his programme, and began to scribble rapidly:

“Here in the figured dark I watch once more, There, with the curtain, roll the years away; Two years of years—there was an idle day Of ours, when happy endings didn’t bore Our unfermented souls; I could adore Your eager face beside me, wide-eyed, gay, Smiling a repertoire while the poor play Reached me as a faint ripple reaches shore.

“Yawning and wondering an evening through, I watch alone... and chatterings, of course, Spoil the one scene which, somehow, did have charms; You wept a bit, and I grew sad for you Right here! Where Mr. X defends divorce And What’s-Her-Name falls fainting in his arms.”