Here is a heart heating wild
with regrets. Here is a mind racked sore with doubts. Music and
sighing, and smiles and tears, are filling the air. Life is throbbing;
hearts are breaking; passions are kindling.
Every one is now thinking of his own appearance, and comparing himself
with others. The Ace of Clubs is musing to himself, that the King of
Spades may be just passably good-looking. "But," says he, "when I walk
down the street you have only to see how people's eyes turn towards me."
The King of Spades is saying; "Why on earth is that Ace of Clubs always
straining his neck and strutting about like a peacock? He imagines all
the Queens are dying of love for him, while the real fact is --"Here he
pauses, and examines his face in the glass.
But the Queens were the worst of all. They began to spend all their
time in dressing themselves up to the Nines. And the Nines would become
their hopeless and abject slaves. But their cutting remarks about one
another were more shocking still.
So the young men would sit listless on the leaves under the trees,
lolling with outstretched limbs in the forest shade.
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