FLIGHT FROM THE PRINCE'S CASTLE 313 



not realize that if we eternally hunted, and shot and 

 shot without any cessation, half the sweetness and half 

 the longing would be gone. 



Can one smell a rose for ever and it still keep its 

 scent? If a rose is smelt all day long, I'm sure it 

 gets bored and longs to offer its fragrance to someone 

 who is a little disdainful. 



My rose is a " gloire," and I know how to take care 

 of it. 



Also — our host had fallen in love, or whatever is its 

 Caucasian equivalent, with Cecily, and there was no 

 knowing how it would affect him. 



My cousin only laughed when I suggested departure, 

 and said she did think me absurd, and had I noticed 

 anything in the Prince's manners, or lack of them, 

 which would in any way betoken the pleasing 

 courtesies and fantastic make-believes which constitute 

 the stock-in-trade temporarily provided by Nature for 

 every lover ? As though it mattered whether I had or 

 not ! My own idea of the thing is that it is only behind 

 the footlights that a man makes love really gracefully. 

 On the stage of life the true lover, the world forgetting, 

 is unstudied and awkward as a cassowary. And that 

 is very awkward indeed. 



" Your favourite poet," said my cousin, " tells us : 



" To fly the boar before the boar pursues 

 Were to incense the boar to follow us, 

 And make pursuit where he did mean no chase." 



Every time I mooted getting back to distant Tiflis 

 there was an ominous silence, but it was not the silence 

 of consent. Requests for horses and a cart to take our 



