"Why," she answered, "I have to forgive myself as well as you. You see, I frightened myself quite as much as you frightened me. I can't feel that you were really to blame--any more than I. I have tried, but I can't--so I came back. Only, I--I must never dance for you again, must I?"
The man could not answer.
As though fully reassured, and quite satisfied to take his answer for granted, she sprang over the tiny stream at her feet, and came to him across the glade, holding out her arms full of blossoms. "See," she said with a smile, "I have brought you the last one of the three gifts." Gracefully, she knelt and placed the flowers on the ground, beside his box of colors.
Deeply moved by her honesty and by her simple trust in him; and charmed by the air of quiet, natural dignity with which she spoke of her gifts; the artist tried to thank her.
"And now," he added, "the meaning--tell me the meaning of your gifts. You promised--you remember--that you would read the pretty riddle, when you came again."
She laughed merrily. "And haven't you guessed the meaning?" she said in her teasing mood.
"How could I?" he retorted. "I was not schooled in your mountains, you know. Your world up here is still a strange world to me."
Still smiling with the pleasure of her fancy, she replied, "But didn't you ask me again and again to help you to know the mountains as I know them?"
"Yes," he said, "but you would not promise."
"I did better than promise"--she returned--"I brought you, from the mountains themselves, their three greatest gifts."