ile.

At once David cast out both his hands toward hers.

"Ah, you are strange, new, delightful!" He stopped abruptly. Then: "Does
it make you happy to hear me say these things?"

"Why do you ask me that?" she said curiously.

"Because it fills me with unspeakable happiness to say them. If I am
silent and only think then I am not so pleased. When I see Glani
standing on the hilltop I feel his speed in the slope of his muscles,
the flaunt of his tail, the pride of his head; but when I gallop him,
and the wind of his galloping strikes my face--ha, that is a joy! So it
is speaking with you. When I see you I say within: 'She is beautiful!'
But when I speak it aloud your lips tremble a little toward a smile,
your eyes darken with pleasure, and then my heart rises into my throat
and I wish to speak again and again and again to find new things to say,
to say old things in new words. So that I may watch the changes in your
face. Do you understand? But now you blush. Is that a sign of anger?"

"It is a sign that no other men have ever talked to me in this manner."

"Then other men are fools. What I say is true. I feel it ring in me,
that it is the truth. Benjamin, my brother, is it not so? Ha!"

She was raising the wine-cup; he checked her with his eager, extended
hand.

"See, Benjamin, how this mysterious thing is done, this raising of the
hand. _We_ raise the cup to drink. An ugly thing--let it be done and
forgotten. But when _she_ lifts the cup it is a thing to be remembered;
how her fingers curve and the weight of the cup presses into them, and
how her wrist droops."

She lowered the cup hastily and put her hand before her face.

"I see," said Connor dryly.

"Bah!" cried the master of the Garden. "You do not see. But you, Ruth,
are you angry? Are you shamed?"

He drew down her hands, frowning with intense anxiety. Her face was
crimson.

"No," she said faintly.

"He says that he sees, but he does not see," went on David. "He is
blind, this Benjamin of mine. I show him my noblest grove of the
eucalyptus trees, each tree as tall as a hill, as proud as a king, as
beautiful as a thought that springs up from the earth. I show him these
glorious trees. What does he say? 'You could build a whole town out of
that wood!' Bah! Is that seeing? No, he is blind! Such a man would give
you hard work to do. But I say to you, Ruth, that to be beautiful is to
be wise, and industrious, and good. Surely you are to me like the ri