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Did you ever hear that old, old song, written two centuries ago--the 'Education of Phyllis'?
No?
Listen then and be ashamed." And lying there, the back of one hand above her eyes, she sang in a sweet, childish, mocking voice, tremulous with hidden laughter, the song of Phyllis the shepherdess and Sylvandre the shepherd--how Phyllis, more avaricious than sentimental, made Sylvandre pay her thirty sheep for one kiss; how, next day, the price shifted to one sheep for thirty kisses; and then the dreadful demoralisation of Phyllis: "Le lendemain, Philis, plus tendre Fut trop heureuse de lui rendre Trente moutons pour un baiser! * * * * * Le lendemain, Philis, peu sage, Aurait donne moutons et chien Pour un baiser que le volage A Lisette donnait pour rien!" "And there we are," said Eileen, sitting up abruptly and levelling the pink-tipped finger of accusation at him--"_there_, if you please, lies the woe of the world--not in the armaments of nations! That old French poet understood in half a second more than your Hague tribunal could comprehend in its first Cathayan cycle! There lies the hope of your millennium--in the higher education of the modern Phyllis." "And the up-to-date Sylvandre," added Selwyn.
"He knows too much already," she retorted, delicate nose in the air.

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