Now she was
infinitely easier than any girl he had known before. Those about his
home met the younger masculine world either with a blunt sarcasm or
with an uneasy voiceless propriety. Rosemary, propped on an elbow, was
as unconcerned as a boy. This made her infinitely more difficult of
approach. Her slight beautiful body, not hidden by clothes--as decency
demanded in the more primitive state--was delightfully marked,
suggested. Here was beauty admitted, lauded, even studied, in place of
the fierce masking and denouncement of his father and the fellow
elders.
He remembered, from collegiate hours, the passion of the Greeks for
sheer earthly strength and loveliness--Helen and Menelaus, Sappho on
the green promontories of Lesbos. At the time of his reading he had
maintained a wry brow ... now Elim Meikeljohn could comprehend the siege
of Troy.
He said aloud, without thinking and instantly aghast at his words:
"You are like a bodied song." He was horrified; then his newer spirit
utterly possessed him, he didn't care; he nodded his long solemn head.
Rosemary Roselle turned toward him with a cool stare that was lost in
irresistible ringing peals of laughter.
"Oh!" she gasped; "what a face for a compliment. It was just like
pouring sirup out of a vinegar cruet."
He became annoyed and cleared his throat in an elder-like manner, but
her amusement strung out in silvery chuckles.
"It's the first I've said of the kind," he admitted stiffly; "I've no
doubt it came awkward.
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