"So it is no use falling in love with you." "You have a more logical mind than I imagined," said I.
"What is a logical mind ?" asked Carlotta.
"It is the antiseptic which destroys the bacilli of unreason whereby true happiness is vivified." "I do not understand," she said.
"I should be vastly surprised if you did," I laughed.
"Would you like me to marry and go away and leave you ?" asked Carlotta, after a long pause.
"I suppose," I said with a sigh, "that some tin-pot knight will drive up one of these days to the castle in a hansom-cab and carry off my princess." "Then you'll be sorry ?" "My dear," I answered, "do not let us discuss such gruesome things on an afternoon like this." "You would like better for me to go on playing at being your Turkish wife ?" "Infinitely," said I.
Alas! The day is sped.

I have asked the fleeting moment to tarry, and it laughed, and shook its gossamer wings at me, and flew by on its mad race into eternity.
As we lay, a cicada set up its shrilling quite close to us.

I slipped my head from Carlotta's lap and idly parted the rank grass in search of the noisy intruder, and by good luck I found him.

I beckoned Carlotta, who glided down, and there, with our heads together and holding our breath, we watched the queerest little love drama imaginable.

Our cicada stood alert and spruce, waving his antenna with a sort of cavalier swagger, and every now and then making his corslet vibrate passionately.