ether. When we were two, one talked
and the other grew weary--was it not so? But now we are complete. One
speaks, one listens, and the other judges. I have been alone. The
Garden of Eden has been to me a prison, at many times. And now there is
nothing wanting. And why? There were many men before. We were not
lacking in numbers. Yet there was an emptiness, and now comes one small
creature, as delicate as a colt of three months, this being of smiles
and curious glances, this small voice, this woman--and at once the gap
is filled. Is it not strange?"

He cast himself back in his chair, as though he wished to throw her into
perspective with her surroundings, and all the time he was staring as
though she were an image, a picture, and not a thing of flesh and blood.
Connor himself was on the verge of a smile, but when he saw the face of
Ruth Manning his mirth disappeared in a chill of terror. She was
struggling and struggling in vain against a rising tide of laughter,
laughter in the face of David Eden and his sensitive pride.

It came, it broke through all bonds, and now it was bubbling from her
lips. As one who awaits the falling of a blow, Connor glanced furtively
at the host, and again he was startled.

There was not a shade of evil temper in the face of David. He leaned
forward, indeed, with a surge of the great shoulders, but it was as one
who listens to an entrancing music. And when she ceased, abruptly, he
sighed.

"Speak to me," he commanded.

She murmured a faint reply.

"Again," said David, half closing his eyes. And Connor nodded a frantic
encouragement to her.

"But what shall I say?"

"For the meaning of what you say," said David, "I have no care, but only
for the sound. Have you heard dripping in a well, a sound like water
filling a bottle and never reaching the top? It keeps you listening for
an hour, perhaps, always a soft sound, but always rising toward a
climax? Or a drowsy day when the wind hardly moves and the whistling of
a bird comes now and then out of the trees, cool and contented? Or you
pass a meadow of flowers in the warm sun and hear the ground murmur of
the bees, and you think at once of the wax films of the honeycomb, and
the clear golden honey? All those things I heard and saw when you
spoke."

"Plain nut!" said Connor, framing the words with silent lips.

But though her eyes rested on him, apparently she did not see his face.
She looked back at Connor with a wistful little half-sm