"The face is too remote, too sacred; I wouldn't dare let myself think
about it. The hand encourages belief in our common humanity; but the
face is divine, a true key to the soul. The hand we think of commonly as
a utilitarian device of nature, and in your case we know it to be
skilled in many gracious arts, but beyond its decorative values--"

"Dear me! Just what are you quoting?"

"Please suffer the rest of it! Your hands, I was about to say, not only
awaken admiration by their grace and symmetry, but the sight of them
does funny things to my heart."

"That heart of yours! How did it ever manage to survive the strain and
excitement of last night?"

"Oh, it functioned splendidly. But it was at work in a good cause. Pray
permit me to continue. Your hands are adorable; I am filled with
tenderest longings to possess them. If I should touch them I might die,
so furious would be my palpitations!"

"The minutes fly and you are delivering an oration on the human hand,
which in the early processes of evolution was only a claw. If you are
not careful you'll be writing poetry next!"

"The future tense does me an injustice. I've already committed the
unpardonable rhyme! I never made a verse before in my life, and this
hasn't been confided to paper. I thought it out at odd moments in my
recent travels. The humming of the wheels on the sleeper coming up gave
me the tune. If you will encourage me a little I think I can recite it.
It needs smoothing out in spots, but it goes something like this:

"I view with awe and wonder
Her hands so slim and long,--
I must not make the blunder
Of clasping them--in song!

"But sweet the memory lingers
Of happy fleeting times
When I have kissed her fingers
And folded them in rhymes.

"Hands shouldn't be so slender,
So dear and white and strong,
To waken thoughts so tender
That fold them like a song!"

"Charming! I never thought when I talked to you that night at your
sister's that I was addressing my inanities to a poet. Those are very
nice jingles. I'm struck by the imagination they show--in the second
verse I think it is--?"

He repeated the verse.

"Are you daring me?" he asked.

"I dared you once and got you into a lot of trouble. Please remember
that we are unchaperoned and the dear little girls asleep in those tents
back yonder would be shocked--"

"I shall make the shock as gentle as possible," he said