The Damsel came back again next day. She had remarked, the day she spent with him in the rain, that the Sage was not so old or so uncomely as she had at first supposed. "If he were to shave off his beard and wear a velvet doublet, he would look as well as many a cavalier of the Court,"

she mused. And she called out before she reached the door:

"Sage, I have come back because I want to ask you just another question.

Will you not come out and sit in the sun while you answer?"

So the Sage advanced in a recalcitrant manner, but he would not sit down beside her.

Then the Damsel began:

"A woman once possessed a ball of silk. It was of so fine and rare a kind that, although of many thousand yards, it took up no s.p.a.ce, and she unwound it daily for her pleasure without any appreciable difference in the size of the ball. At last she suddenly fancied she perceived some alteration. It came upon her as a shock, but still she continued to use the silk with the casual idea that a thing she had employed so long _must_ go on forever. Then again, in about a week, there came another shock. The ball was certainly smaller, and felt cold and hard and firm.

The thought came to her, 'What if it should not be silk all through and I have come to the end of matters? What shall I do?' Now tell me, Sage, should the woman go on to the end and find perhaps a stone? Or should she try to rewind the silk? Which is the best course?"

The Damsel took up the Sage's staff, which he had dropped for the moment, and with its point she drew geometrical figures in the sand. But the sun made shadows with her eyelashes, and the Sage felt his voice tremble, so he answered, tartly:

"That would depend upon the nature of the woman. If she continues to unwind the silk she will certainly find a piece of adamant, which has been cunningly covered with this rare, soft substance. If she tries to rewind, she will discover the thread has become tangled, and the ball can never again look smooth and even as before. She must choose which she would prefer, a clean piece of adamant or an uneven ball of silk."

"But that is no answer to my question," said the Damsel, pouting. "I asked which must she do for the best."

"Neither is better nor worse!" replied the Sage with asperity. "And there is no best."

"You are quite wrong, Sage," returned the Damsel. "There is a third course. She can cut the thread and leave the ball as it is, a coating of smooth silk still--and an undiscovered possibility inside."

"You are too much for me!" exclaimed the Sage in a fury. "Answer your own questions, to begin with, in future! I will have no more of you!"

and he went into his cave and ostentatiously fastened the door.

The Damsel smiled to herself and continued to draw geometrical figures with the point of the Sage's staff in the sand.

_There are always three courses in life: the good, the bad, and the--indifferent. The good gives you calm, and makes you sleep; the bad gives you emotions, and makes you weep; and the indifferent gives you no satisfaction, and makes you yawn, so--choose wisely._

One can swear to be faithful eternally, but how can one swear to love eternally? The one is a question of will, the other a sentiment beyond all human control. One might as sensibly swear to keep the wind in the south, or the sun from setting!

And yet we swear both vows--and break both vows.

A woman is always hardest upon her own sins, committed by others.

A man is sometimes lenient to them.

A fool can win the love of a man, but it requires a woman of resources to keep it.

The Damsel did not go away from the cave, as was her custom. She continued to draw geometrical figures in the sand. Presently she called to the Sage once more.

"Come out again, dear Sage! Listen, I have something more to say."

He unfastened the window and stood leaning on the sill.

"Well?" he said, sternly. "Well?"

"A Ring Dove once was owned by a man. It was the sweetest and most gentle of birds, besides being extremely beautiful. It adored the man and lived contentedly in its cage. The perches, which the man had had prepared especially for it, were endeared to it from a.s.sociation with the happy hours when it had been caressed by the man. Altogether to it the cage appeared a palace, and it lived content.

"The man was a brutal creature, more or less, and at last he cruelly ill-treated the Ring Dove, and exalted a Cuckoo in its place. This conduct greatly saddened the sweet Dove, but it over and over again forgave its tormentor, so great was its love, and even saw the Cuckoo advanced to the highest honors without anger, only a bleeding heart. How long things would have continued in this way no one knows; but the man suddenly gave the Cuckoo the Ring Dove's cage, and let the Cuckoo sleep on the perches which the Dove was accustomed to consider its very own.

This overcame the gentle Dove. Its broken heart mended, and it flew away. Tell me, Sage, why did this action cure the Dove of its great love for the man, when it had borne all the blows and cruelty without resentment?"

"That is an easy question to answer," replied the Sage. "The Dove was really growing tired and seized this as a good opportunity to be off."

"Oh, how little you know of the female s.e.x, even of Doves!" laughed the Damsel. "I can give you the true reason myself. It was the bad taste of the man in giving the Cuckoo the cage and perches of the Ring Dove, which he had consecrated to her. That cured her, and enabled her to fly away."

And the Damsel curtsied to the Sage and sauntered off, laughing and looking back over her shoulder.

_An action committed in bad taste is more curing and disillusionizing to Love than the cruelest blows of rage and hate._

A man would often be the lover of his wife--if he were married to some one else.

There come moments in life when we regret the old G.o.ds.

Time and place--temperature and temperament--and after the sunset the night--and then to-morrow.

All the winter pa.s.sed and the Damsel remained at the Court and the Sage in his cave. Both found the days long and their occupation insufficient.

At last, when spring came, the Damsel again mounted the hill one morning before dawn and tapped at the Sage's door.

His heart gave a bound, and he flew to open it without more ado.

"So you have come back?" he said; and his voice was eager, though it was a gray light and he could not see her plainly.

"Yes," said she; "I want you to tell me one more story of life before I go on a long voyage."

So the Sage began:

"There was once upon a time a man of half-measures, whose brain was filled with dreams for his own glory, and he possessed a woman of flesh and blood, who loved him, and would have turned the dreams into realities. But _because_ he was happy with her, and because her hair was black and her eyes were green, and her flesh like alabaster, he said to himself, 'This is a fiend and a vampire. Nothing human can be so delectable.' So he ran a stake through her body, and buried her at the cross-roads. Then he found life an emptiness, and went down into nothingness and was forgotten--"