After that, he branched out into an informal lecture on the relationships of various plants and flowers, trying, in the sketchy way that he had learned from cheerfully popular books of science, to give her some conception of the evolution of new types and the persistence of old ones in the flora of the earth, together with the manifold delicate ties of kinship between the different existing forms.
"Then, they are all one big family!" said Jessie, her face lighting with a sympathy that Lance reverently recorded as being maternal. She was as much pleased as if she had discovered a new set of thoroughly desirable relatives. "But oh, Mr. Lance," she added, quickly reflecting, "doesn't that prove that all these types have got to exist? You say that after one crude attempt has been followed by a better development, specimens of the old sort continue—like the pine trees. Now, it seems to me that it's just the same with the human family. We're all related, but we're very unlike; and while some of us have gone on improving, the others have stayed just as they were. The negroes and the poor whites around here are our monsters—for you say the pine trees are monsters—but if we have the pines, why shouldn't we have the others?"
She clapped her hands, in her glee at the argument she had discovered; and it must be admitted that Lance was nonplussed by her swift sagacity.
"But then you must remember," he said, after pausing, "that the human creation has a much greater capacity for growth than the vegetable; and we ought to help it forward in its growth. There's Sylvester De Vine as an example. See how he's rising above his condition! I take the greatest interest in that young fellow, and I believe I'm bound to assist him as far as I can."
"Yes, that's true," Jessie acknowledged. "But it's very nice to have all these contrasts. I don't want them abolished."
Lance could not but be aware that he didn't want them abolished, either. Would he have been willing to obliterate all the differences that existed between Jessie and the majority of the surrounding population? Did he want all other women to be just like her? On the contrary, the reason why he preferred her was that she represented a higher development, a "more specialized" form, an exception to the common mass of inferior beings.
"You're right," he said. "It is nice to have the contrasts. I admit myself vanquished."
In her triumph Jessie rose from the cane chair where she had sat reclining. "Oh, how splendid!" she cried. "I never expected such a victory. I must find pa, and tell him how I've vanquished you."
Lance also rose, but to detain her. "Don't go yet," he said; "I have something else to say. You have conquered me in another way, too, and I want to hear from you whether you will accept my surrender." In saying this he drew a little closer, and gazed with earnest expectancy into her face.
The sudden stillness and frightened silence with which Jessie at first met his advance were not exactly what one would expect in a conqueror. After an instant, however, she regained her self-possession. Her natural merriment and archness returned as she asked, with her head leaning sideward: "Is the surrender unconditional, Mr. Lance?"