"Of course, you can't understand--how could you? You are 'Nature' and 'Nature' must often be puzzled by the things that 'Civilization' does."
"Yes. I think that is true," she agreed. "But I'm glad you like my music, anyway."
"And so am I glad--that I can like it. That's the only thing that saves me."
"And your friend, the artist,--does he like my mountain music, do you think?"
"Very much. He needs it too."
"I am glad," she answered simply. "I hoped he would like it, and that it would help him. It was really for him that I have played."
"You played for him?"
"Yes," she returned without confusion. "You see, I did not know about you--then. I thought you were altogether the man who wrote those books--and so I could not play for you. That is--I mean--you understand--I could not play--" again she seemed to search for a word, and finding it, smiled--"I could not play myself for you. But I thought that because he was an artist he would understand; and that if I could make the music tell him of the mountains it would, perhaps, help him a little to make his work beautiful and right--do you see?"
"Yes," he answered smilingly, "I see. I might have known that it was for him that you brought your message from the hills. But poor old 'Civilization' is frightfully stupid sometimes, you know."
Laughingly, she turned to the lattice wall of the arbor, and parting the screen of vines a little, said to him, "Look here!"