"I think," said Gabriella, "I should prefer a horse that was designed for itself."
"And so," resumed David, moving straight on toward his concealed climax, "if I were a poet, I'd never write poems about flowers and clouds and lakes and mountains and moonbeams and all that; those things are not for a man. If I were a novelist, I'd never write stories about a grizzly bear, or a dog, or a red bird. If I were a sculptor, I'd not carve a lynx or a lion. If I were a painter, I'd never paint sheep. In all this universe there is only one thing that Nature ever created for a man. I'd write poems about that one thing! I'd write novels about it! I'd paint it! I'd carve it! I'd compose music to it!"
"Why, what is that?" said Gabriella, led sadly astray.
"A woman!" said David solemnly, turning red.
Gabriella fled into the uttermost caves of silence.
"And there was only one thing ever made for woman."
"I understand perfectly."
David felt rebuffed. He hardly knew why. But after a moment or two of silence he went on, still advancing with rough paces toward his goal:—
"Sometimes," he said mournfully, "it's harder for a man to get the only thing in the world that was ever made for him than anything else! This difficulty, however, appertains exclusively to the human species."
Gabriella touched her handkerchief quickly to her lips and held it there.