“Did he write about being in love?” said Eugene in a quivering voice.
Tom Davis turned a surprised face on him. “Gre-a-at Day!” he exclaimed, after a moment. Then he began to laugh.
“He wrote about being in love,” Eugene cried with sudden certain passion. “He wrote about being in love with a lady named Lesbia. Ask Mr. Leonard if you don’t believe me.”
They turned thirsty faces up to him.
“Why—no—yes—I don’t know about all that,” said Mr. Leonard, challengingly, confused. “Where’d you hear all this, boy?”
“I read it in a book,” said Eugene, wondering where. Like a flung spear, the name.
—Whose tongue was fanged like a serpent, flung spear of ecstasy and passion.
Odi et amo: quore id faciam…
“Well, not altogether,” said Mr. Leonard. “Some of them,” he conceded.
… fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
“Who was she?” said Tom Davis.
“Oh, it was the custom in those days,” said Mr. Leonard carelessly. “Like Dante and Beatrice. It was a way the poet had of paying a compliment.”
The serpent whispered. There was a distillation of wild exultancy in his blood. The rags of obedience, servility, reverential awe dropped in a belt around him.
“She was a man’s wife!” he said loudly. “That’s who she was.”
Awful stillness.
“Why—here—who told you that?” said Mr. Leonard, bewildered, but considering matrimony a wild and possibly dangerous myth. “Who told you, boy?”
“What was she, then?” said Tom Davis pointedly.
“Why—not exactly,” Mr. Leonard murmured, rubbing his chin.
“She was a Bad Woman,” said Eugene. Then, most desperately, he added: “She was a Little Chippie.”
