PATHOS A LA MODE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue V, 4 August 1894, Page 120

PATHOS A LA MODE.

A lover’s parting. (From the ‘ New ’ Fiction, various styles. ) Polyanthia flung her svelte form down on the mnsic stool, and began strumming ‘After the Ball.’ * Then this is final,’ he said, decisively. ‘ Haven’t I said so ?’ ‘ But you love me ?’ * That’s nothing. Of course I do. You’re so beastly good-looking. Do you like compliments? Compliments,’ she continued, dreamily, ‘ are like sausages—they go down well with the mashed.’ ‘ Polyanthia, will you marry me ?’ ‘ My dear boy, marriage is like a hard-boiled egg—mostly yoke. Besides, I should like it so much that I should be afraid of having nothing left to dislike, and that would be a beastly bore.’ ‘ Polyanthia,’ he said, deliberately, ‘ if you had been Noah I think you would have drowned yourself on the first day of the Deluge for fear that you might run short of tobacco in the Ark.’ ‘What shall you do ?’ she said, presently. * O ! the usual thing ; any chemist will sell it me for twopence.’ She raised her lithe form to its full height. ‘ Won’t you kiss me once, as—as chorus-girls kiss their spoonies?’he murmured, fiercely. She felt the universe tingling. Great purple stars with yellow borders swam round and round the room. With a crimson cry of indignation she flung the sofa cushion at his parting form. It hit him with a brown thnd. Then she stood on her head. Not because it was nice or satisfying, but because it was the most incongruous thing to do at a moment when she had just found her feet. ‘ And the world is full of the incongruous,’ she said. But no more incongruous couple could be found than Life and the * New ’ Fiction.