Diary of a Drug Fiend

Over the Top ! ai as a snake would have done. She saw me at once, and ran almost into my arms excitedly. She whispered something in my ear. I didn’t hear it. The club had suddenly been, so to speak, struck dumb. Lou was coming through the door. Over her shoulders was an opera cloak of deep rich purple edged with gold, the garment of an empress, or (shall I say ?) of a priestess. The whole place stopped still to look at her. And I had thought she was not beautiful! She did not walk upon the ground. “ Vera incessu patuit dea,’ as we used to say at school. And as she paced she chanted from that magnificent litany of Captain J.F. C. Fuller, “Oh Thou golden sheaf of desires, that art bound by a fair wisp of poppies! I adore thee, Evoe! I adore thee, 1 AO!” She sang full-throated, with a male quality in her voice. Her beauty was so radiant that my mind ran to the breaking of dawn after a long night flight. “In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, but westward, look! the land is bright!” As if in answer to my thought, her voice rolled forth again :— “QO Thou golden wine of the sun, that art poured over the dark breasts of night! I adore Thee, Evoe! I adore Thee, I AO!” The first part of the adoration was in a sort of Gregorian chant varying with the cadence of the words. But the chorus always came back to the same thing. TN FN er ‘ ae a ae = bal aa = I a-dore Thee, Evoe ! IadoreThee,I A O! EE-AH-OH gives the enunciation of the last word. Every vowel is drawn out as long as possible. It ‘seemed as if she were trying to get the last cubic milli- metre of air out of her lungs every time she sang it. if me &