"I have my failings, of course," said Andrew, a trifle coolly. "I'm only human, you know. We're all of us that."
"Unfortunately, you're not 'only human' my dear young friend; you're masculine as well. And we're not all of us that, thank Heaven!"
"Aren't we talking a little blindly?" suggested Andrew.
"Yes, possibly," agreed his companion, "but some things aren't easy to say. Do you remember that when one of the old prophets undertook to haul a monarch over the coals for his misdeeds, he would always begin with a parable? I think, in this instance, I shall follow the established precedent."
"I was afraid you were going to begin by saying you were old enough to be my mother," retorted Andrew, with a faint smile.
"I always skip unimportant details," said Mrs. Carnby. She observed with satisfaction that, without increasing the speed at the top of the incline, Andrew had turned from the direct route to St. Germain into one of the forest by-roads. Evidently he was in no haste to curtail the conversation.
"I'm waiting," he observed presently.
"Where I used to spend my summers, on the South Shore," said Mrs. Carnby, with her eyes on the interlacing foliage overhead, "it was the custom of the natives to make collections of marine trophies from the beach and the rock-pools, and work upon them sundry transformations, with an aim to alleged artistic effectiveness. They glued the smaller shells and coloured pebbles on boxes and mirror-frames; and painted landscapes on the pearl finish of the larger mussels; and tied baby-ribbon around the sea-urchin shells; and gilded the dried starfish. You know what I mean—the kind of thing that comes under the head of 'A Present from North Scituate' or 'Souvenir of Nantasket Beach.' But you may, perhaps, have remarked the appearance of one and all of these objects while they were as yet where nature was pleased to put them—on the sand, that is, or in the tidal pools. Do you remember the sheen of the pebbles, the soft pinks and grays of the starfish? Is there anything comparable to these, in the artistic combination of all the gilt paint and baby-ribbon in the world? It seems to suggest, as a possibility, that nature knows best; and that in lacking the simple touch of sea-water they lack the one thing which ever made them beautiful at all. It opens up a whole tragedy in the phrase 'out of one's element.' That's my parable."
"You'll remember," said Andrew, falling in with her whim, "that the transgressing monarch rarely understood what the prophet was driving at in his parable. I, too, must follow precedent."