First of all there 'd been the trouble about the hunting. She never said a word about it, but her face had blanched the first morning he saddled up for the Lonth. She had expected him, he laughed, to have the same crazy notions as her family. And her face had been drawn with pain when he came back in the evening. And she had said nothing. Too proud. Too damn crazy and too proud!
That evening he had asked her to play "Reynardine"—not that he liked the tune; he'd rather have had something popular, something with body to it, none of your blasted wailing folk-songs. But he just thought it might please her to have him ask. She shook her head, and plunged into Chopin.
"I don't think I could play—'Reynardine'—to-night," she said.
And she had never played or sung "Reynardine" to him again.
She and her folk had such darn queer notions. They thought more of a horse under them than themselves. They went to infinite pains and immense time to train a green horse or break in a dog where another person with a flick of spurs or, a crack of the whip could do it in half the time. True, they did it well. But, after all, you did n't make human friendships with animals. You made them do what you wanted to; or if they did n't— That was a man's way.
But people are queer, some of them. One man is proud that his horse whinnies in the stall when he hears the beloved footstep. And some men give friendship to dogs they never give to women, and their hearts break when a hound dies. And to some folk the birds of the air will come and eat out of their hand, so confident are the birds. And the death of a rabbit is a great tragedy to children. There is a virgin glade in nearly all folks' hearts where neither blood nor marriage wander, but the love of animals possesses. It is some mystic link in the chain of creation.
But he never had it. Never could understand it, Morgan thought. After all, man is the lord of creation, Morgan decided—that's true isn't it?—and all living things were for him to use. He had all rights over them, even to life and death. That was how some folks looked at it—not crazy people like the Fitzpauls.
And Reynardine did n't like the way he broke horses. Reynardine did n't like the way he shot pheasants. She was a queer girl, but—God!—she was very beautiful!
Well, that was the whole story of it; they did n't get on. There grew a gulf between them, and was that his fault? he asked. Was it his fault he was n't insane? Was it his fault he was too much of a man for her?
And when she was to have a child, she expected so much of him. She never asked of course—oh, no! She would never ask for anything, but she followed him with dumb eyes. What did she expect, anyhow? It was no man's job to hang around a gravid woman all the time, holding her hand. A million women in the world were bearing children. What was there to it, after all? Every one did it.