Pepeeta answered with a sigh.
"Cheer up, child," he cried in his hearty fashion. "Your voice sounds like the squeak of a mouse! B-b-be gay! Be happy! How can you be sad on a morning like this? Look at the play of the muscles under the smooth skins of the horses! Remember the b-b-bright shining dollars that we coaxed out of the tightly b-b-buttoned breeches pockets of the gray-backed Q-Q-Quakers. What more do you ask of life? What else can it g-g-give?"
"It does not make me happy! I shall never be happy until I have a home," she said, still sobbing, and trying to conceal the cause of her grief from herself as well as from her husband.
Nothing could have astonished the great, well-fed animal by her side more than this confession. In all his life he had never heaved a sigh. His contentment was like that of a lion in a forest full of antelopes. But if he was fierce and cruel to others, he was at least kind to his mate, and he now put his great paw around her little shoulders and gave her one of his leonine kisses.
"You are as melancholy as an unstrung d-d-drum," he said. "I must cheer you up. How would you like a s-s-song? What shall it be? 'Love's Young D-D-Dream'? All right. Here g-g-goes."
And at the word, he opened his great mouth and stuttered it forth in stentorian tones that went bellowing among the hills like the echoes of thunder.
Pepeeta smiled at his kindness and was grateful for his clumsy efforts at consolation; but they did not dispel her sadness. Her spirits sank lower and lower. The light seemed to have faded out of the world, and the streams of joy to have run dry. She sighed again in spite of herself, and in that sigh exhaled the hope which had sprung from her heart at the prospects of a new and sweet companionship.
She had divined the cause of her disappointment with an unerring instinct. It was exactly as she thought. At the last instant, David's heart had failed him.
On the preceding evening, he had hurried through his "chores," excused himself from giving an account of the adventures of the day on the ground of fatigue, and retired to his room to cherish in his heart the memories of that beautiful face and the prospects of the future. He could not sleep. For hours he tossed on his bed or sat in the window looking out into the night, and when at last he fell into an uneasy slumber his dreams were haunted by two faces which struggled ceaselessly to crowd each other from his mind. One was the young and passionate countenance of the gypsy, and the other was that of his beautiful mother with her pale, carven features, her snow-white hair, her pensive and unearthly expression. They both looked at him, and then gazed at each other. Now one set below the horizon like a wan, white moon, and the other rose above it like the glowing star of love. Now the moon passed over the glowing star in a long eclipse and then disappearing behind a cloud left the brilliant star to shine alone.
When he awoke the gray dawn revealed in vague outline the realities of the world, and warned him that he had but a few moments to execute his plans. He sprang from his couch strong in his purpose to depart, for the fever of adventure was still burning in his veins, and the rapturous looks with which Pepeeta had received his promise to be her companion still made his pulses bound. He hurriedly put a few things into a bundle and stole out of the house.