I couldn't bring myself to penetrate
Her mask before you all who still believe.
She needs her make-up, foot-lights . . . she's arranged
Them now, just as she did when I played lead
Among the puppets of her small intrigues.
 

                              Oh, yes!

If I should come . . . we're schooled . . . we'd be polite.
But some day when her tricks were thinnest, she'd
Look up and catch my eye across the crowd
(I'd lose face, not have where to look) and her
Disguise would crack and fall, the colors of
Her make-up run, the spot-light vanish, she'd
Be left stark in her soul's thin furnishings.
And that would not be fair. Her cheapness needs
Its cloak. I could not be the one to bare
The flabby muscles and the sagging belly of
Her soul before you . . . So . . . Monsieur is sorry . . . He
Regrets that he cannot accept.

^__Margaret E. Haughawout.