“Casey—Harris Casey. Such a romantic name! Two epics and no end of lyrics. Jack Harland says that Harris’s longer epic is the most colossal thing in the English language since ‘Childe Harold.’ While I’m not sure that Jack will ever accomplish anything worth while in the creative field, you must admit that he is a perfectly colossal critic. You do admit it?” she questioned so earnestly that any one entering the room might have fancied that she pled for the salvation of her immortal soul.
“‘Childe Harold’ is not quite in the form of—” I began, determined not to be led into a controversy so early in the morning, for I still cherished the hope that she would take herself off.
“Form!” Hildegarde cried, as though invoking her patron saint. “Form! the chief difference between poetry and prose. ‘Paradise Lost’ and ‘Lucile,’ for instance—both tragedies, in a way, yet each a different form. You don’t mind if I slip my feet under the cover for a bit?—I’ve taken off my slippers.”
Without waiting for my reply she hoisted up her feet and began to tug at the bedclothes. Such looking feet! Her black stockings were without toes and heels and her bare flesh glistened with moisture.
“Your feet are sopping wet!” I involuntarily expostulated.
“I never take cold,” she assured me, in the act of sticking her feet between my sheets.
“Please,” I begged, grabbing the bedclothes from her hands. “Please, get that bath-towel over there and dry them—give them a good rubbing. No use taking risks when you don’t need to.”
“Risks!” she scoffed, in the act of stripping off one wet and tattered stocking. “That’s what my burglar and I disputed about. We’ve been sitting on a bench in Washington Square since twelve——”
“Of all things! And the ground covered with snow.”
“He brushed off a bench and I am never conscious of my body when enthused,” she reproved me. “He is a stubborn man, but he finally had to admit the justice of my argument—considering the risks in an undertaking is the quickest way to insure defeat. Only a weak individuality will consider risks. Once I make up my mind to do a thing, I do it.”
She was rubbing one foot with my face-towel after having tossed her stocking on my pin-cushion.
“While making up your mind, don’t you consider the risks?” I inquired, huddling up in the far corner of the bed. The thought of having her cold feet come in contact with my flesh made me feel like climbing over the headboard.