"Last night," he said with a droll twinkle, after the evening was about half spent, "there was one subject I did not speak to you about--Man's place in Nature. Have you ever thought about that?"

"I've been too busy thinking about my place in the school!" said Gabriella, laughing--Gabriella who at all times was simplicity and clearness.

"You see Nature does nothing for Man except what she enables him to do for himself. In this way she has made a man of him; she has given him his resources and then thrown him upon them. Beyond that she cares nothing, does nothing, provides, arranges nothing. I used to think, for instance, that the greenness of the earth was intended for his eyes--all the loveliness of spring. On the contrary, she merely gave him an eye which has adapted itself to get pleasure out of the greenness. The beauty of spring would have been the same, year after year, century after century, had he never existed. And the blue of the sky--I used to think it was hung about the earth for his sake; and the colors of the clouds, the great sunsets. But the blueness of the sky is nothing but the dust of the planet floating deep around it, too light to sink through the atmosphere, but reflecting the rays of the sun.

These rays fall on the clouds and color them. It would all have been so, had Man never been born. The earth's springs of drinking water, refreshing showers, the rainbow on the cloud,--they would have been the same, had no human being ever stood on this planet to claim them for ages as the signs of providence and of covenant."

Gabriella had her own faith as to the rainbow.

"So, none of the other animals was made for Man," resumed David, who seemed to have some ulterior purpose in all this. "I used to think the structure and nature of the a.s.s were given him that he might be adapted to bear Man's burdens; they were given him that he might bear his own burdens. Horses were not made for cavalry. And a camel--I never doubted that he was a wonderful contrivance to enable man to cross the desert; he is a wonderful contrivance in order that the contrivance itself may cross the desert."

"I hope I may never have to use one," said Gabriella, "when I commence to ride again. I prefer horses and carriages--though I suppose you would say that only the carriage was designed for me and that I had no right to be drawn in that way."

"Some day a horse may be designed for you, just as the carriage is. We do not use horses on railroads now; we did use them at first in Kentucky. Sometime you may not use horses in your carriage. You may have a horse that was designed for you."

"I think," said Gabriella, "I should prefer a horse that was designed for itself."

"And so," resumed David, moving straight on toward his concealed climax, "if I were a poet, I'd never write poems about flowers and clouds and lakes and mountains and moonbeams and all that; those things are not for a man. If I were a novelist, I'd never write stories about a grizzly bear, or a dog, or a red bird. If I were a sculptor, I'd not carve a lynx or a lion. If I were a painter, I'd never paint sheep. In all this universe there is only one thing that Nature ever created for a man. I'd write poems about that one thing! I'd write novels about it!

I'd paint it! I'd carve it! I'd compose music to it!"

"Why, what is that?" said Gabriella, led sadly astray.

"A woman!" said David solemnly, turning red.

Gabriella fled into the uttermost caves of silence.

"And there was only one thing ever made for woman."

"I understand perfectly."

David felt rebuffed. He hardly knew why. But after a moment or two of silence he went on, still advancing with rough paces toward his goal:--

"Sometimes," he said mournfully, "it's harder for a man to get the only thing in the world that was ever made for him than anything else! This difficulty, however, appertains exclusively to the human species."

Gabriella touched her handkerchief quickly to her lips and held it there.

"But then, many curious things are true of our species," he continued, with his eyes on the fire and in the manner of a soliloquy, "that never occur elsewhere. A man, for instance, is the only animal that will settle comfortably down for the rest of its days to live on the exertions of the female."

"It shows how a woman likes to be depended on," said Gabriella, with her deep womanliness.

"Tom-cats of the fireside," said David, "who are proud of what fat mice their wives feed them on. It may show what you say in the nature of the woman. But what does it show in the nature of the man?"

"That depends."

"I don't think it depends," replied David. "I think it is either one of the results of Christianity or a survival of barbarism. As one of the results of Christianity, it demonstrates what women will endure when they are imposed upon. As a relic of barbarism--when it happens in our country--why not regard it as derived from the North American Indians?

The chiefs lounged around the house and smoked the best tobacco and sent the squaws out to work for them. Occasionally they broke silence by briefly declaring that they thought themselves immortal."

Gabriella tried to draw the conversation into other channels, but David was not to be diverted.

"It has been a great fact in the history of your s.e.x," he said, looking across at her, with a shake of his head, as though she did not appreciate the subject, "that idea that everything in the universe was made for Man."

"Why?" inquired Gabriella, resigning herself to the perilous and the irresistible.

"Well, in old times it led men to think that since everything else belonged to them, so did woman: therefore when they wanted her they did not ask for her; they took her."

"It is much better arranged at present, whatever the reason."

"Now a man cannot always get one, even when he asks for her," and David turned red again and knotted his hands.

"I am so glad the schoolhouse was not damaged by the storm," observed Gabriella, reflecting.

David fell into a revery but presently awoke.

"There are more men than women in the world. On an average, that is only a fraction of a woman to every man. Still the men cannot take care of them. But it ought to be a real pleasure to every man to take care of an entire woman."

"Did you ever notice the hands in that portrait?"

David glanced at the portrait without noticing it, and went his way.

"Since a man knows nothing else was created for him, he feels his loneliness without her so much more deeply. They ought to be very good and true to each other--a man and a woman--since they two are alone in the universe."

He gulped down his words and stood up, trembling.

"I must be going," he said, without even looking at Gabriella, and went out into the hall for his coat.

"Bring it in here." she called. "It is cold out there." She watched how careless he was about making himself snug for his benumbing walk. He had a woollen comforter which he left loosely tied about his neck.

"Tie it closer," she commanded. "You had a cold last night, and it is worse tonight. Tuck it in close about your neck."

David made the attempt. He was not thinking.

"This way!" And Gabriella showed him by using her fingers around her own neck and collar.

He tried again and failed, standing before her with a mingling of embarra.s.sment and stubborn determination.

"That will never do!" she cried with genuine concern. She took hold of the comforter by the ends and drew the knot up close to his throat, he lifting his head to receive it as it came. Then David with his eyes on the ceiling felt his coat collar turned up and her soft warm fingers tucking the comforter in around his neck. When he looked down, she was standing over by the fireplace.

"Good night," she said positively, with a quick gesture of dismissal as she saw the look in his eyes.

Each of the million million men who made up the past of David, that moment reached a hand out of the distance and pushed him forward. But of them all there was none so helpless with modesty,--so in need of hiding from every eye,--even his own,--the sacred annals of that moment.

He was standing by the table on which burned the candles. He bent down quickly and blew them out and went over to her by the dim firelight.

XIX

All high happiness has in it some element of love; all love contains a desire for peace. One immediate effect of new happiness, new love, is to make us turn toward the past with a wish to straighten out its difficulties, heal its breaches, forgive its wrongs. We think most hopefully of distressing things which may still be remedied, most regretfully of others that have pa.s.sed beyond our reach and will.