e wind whispered and then stopped to
listen likewise. There was a faint ache in her heart at the thought that
she had not known such things all her life. She knew then what gave the
face of David of Eden its solemnity. She leaned a little toward him.
"Now tell me about yourself. What you have done."

"Of anything but that."

"Why not?"

"No more than I want you to tell me about yourself and what you have
done. What you feel, what you think from time to time, I wish to know; I
am very happy to know. I fit in those bits of you to the picture I have
made."

Once more the egoist was talking!

"But to have you tell me of what you have done--that is not pleasant. I
do not wish to know that you have talked to other men and smiled on
them. I do not wish to know of a single happy day you spent before you
came to the Garden of Eden. But I shall tell you of the four men who are
my masters if you wish."

"Tell me of them if you will."

"Very well. John was the beginning. He died before I came. Of the others
Matthew was my chief friend. He was very old and thin. His wrist was
smaller than yours, almost. His hair was a white mist. In the evening
there seemed to be a pale moonshine around his face.

"He was very small and old--so old that sometimes I thought he would dry
up or dissolve and disappear. Toward the last, before God called him,
Matthew grew weak, and his voice was faint, yet it was never sharp or
shaken. Also, until the very end his eyes were young, for his heart was
young.

"That was Matthew. He was like you. He liked the silence. 'Listen,' he
would say. 'The great stillness is the voice; God is speaking.' Then he
would raise one thin finger and we caught our breath and listened.

"Do you see him?"

"I see him, and I wish that I had known him."

"Of the others, Luke was taller than I. He had yellow hair as long and
as coarse as the mane of a yellow horse. When he rode around the lake we
could hear him coming for a great distance by his singing, for his voice
was as strong as the neigh of Glani. I have only to close my eyes, and I
can hear that singing of Luke from beside the lake. Ah, he was a huge
man! The horses sweated under him.

"His beard was long; it came to the middle of his belly; it had a great
blunt square end. Once I angered him. I crept to him when he slept--I
was a small boy then--and I trimmed the beard down to a point.

"When Luke wakened he felt the beard and sat for a long time looking