'Oh, why?'
'Because,' Madame Ruizrepressed a yawn, 'because, my dear, I feel armchairish.'
With a kiss of thefinger-tips (decidedly distinguished hands had Vittorio Ruiz), he turned away.
Joying frankly inexcess, the fiery noontide hour had a special charm for him.
It was the hour, to be sure, of 'the Faun!'
'Aho, Ahi, Aha!' hecarolled, descending half trippingly a few white winding stairs that broughthim upon a fountain. Palms, with their floating fronds radiating light, stoodall around.
It was here 'thecreative mood' would sometimes take him, for he possessed no small measure oftalent of his own.
His Three Hodeidahs,and Five Phallic Dances for Pianoforte and Orchestra, otherwise known as'Suite in Green,' had taken the whole concert world by storm, and, now, growingmore audacious, he was engaged upon an opera to be known, by and by, as Sumaïa.
'Ah Atthis, it wasSappho who told me--' tentatively he sought an air.
'Ah Atthis--' One mustmake the girl feel that her little secret is out...; quiz her; but let herknow, and pretty plainly, that the Poetess had been talking...
'Ah Atthis--'
But somehow or other the lyric mood to-daywas obdurate and not to be persuaded.
'I blame the oysters! Afteroysters--' he murmured, turning about to ascertain what was exciting the dogs.
She was coming up the drive with her faceto the sun, her body shielded behind a spreading bouquet of circumstance.
From: Ronald Firbank, Sorrow In Sunlight, 1924.
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