lease open the door, Sage," entreated the Damsel, "and I will tell you a story."
The Sage pushed it ajar with his foot, but he did not come out.
"There was once upon a time a man," she said, "who unexpectedly and for no apparent reason became the possessor of a Tiger. It had been coveted by numbers of people and was of a certain value and beauty. It had an infinite variety of tricks. It was learned in caresses. It was fierce, and gentle, and it could love passionately. Altogether a large price would have been offered the man for it by many others if he had wished to sell it. In the beginning he had greatly valued the possession of this strange beast, and had fed it with his own hand. The little anxiety as to whether it would eat him or not, or rush away, had kept him interested. But gradually, as he became certain the Tiger adored him, and would show none but velvet claws and make only purring sounds, his keenness waned. He still loved it, but certainty is monotonous, and his eyes wandered to other objects. 'The Tiger is nothing but a domestic cat,' he said; 'I will pet and caress it when the mood takes me, and for the rest of the time it can purr to itself by the fire.' At last one day, after the Tiger was especially gracious and had purred with all essence of love, the man yawned. 'It is really a charming beast,' he said, 'but it is always the same; and then he went away and forgot even to feed it. The Tiger felt hungry and restless. Its quietness and gentleness became less apparent. The man on his travels chanced to think of it and sent it a biscuit. So the Tiger waited, and when the man returned and expected the usual docile caresses, it bit his hand. 'Vile beast!' said the man. 'Have I not fed and kept you for weeks, and now you bite my hand!' Now tell me, Sage, which was right—the man or the Tiger?"
"Both, and neither," said the Sage, decidedly. "The man was only obeying the eternal law in finding what he was sure of monotonous; but he mistook the nature of the beast he had to deal with. Tigers are not of the species that can ever be really monotonous, if he had known. The Tiger was foolish to allow its true nature to be so disguised by its love for the man that he was deceived into looking upon it as a domestic cat. It thought to please him thereby and so lost its hold."
"And what will be the end?" asked the Damsel.
"The man's hand will smart to the end of his life, and he will never secure another Tiger. And the Tiger will go elsewhere and console itself by letting its natural instincts have full play. It will not be foolish a second time."
But the Damsel's conclusion was different.
"No," she said. "The man's hand will heal up, and the Tiger will caress him and make him forget the bite, and they will love each other to eternity because they have both realized their own stupidity."
And without speaking further she allowed the Sage to close the door.