"A wonderful scene," she said, her look lost in the river and the hills; "a scene which makes one think in parables, as the old men of Scriptures did."
"Parables," I replied, remembering, as I saw she did, "are very unuseful."
"Why do you say that?" she asked gently, still looking at the dance of sunlight and shadow upon the heather and the water.
"Oh, because they are," I said absurdly enough.
"That's a woman's reason," she observed, "and it should be left to a woman. Have you nothing more original to say?"
"Well, if I were to tell you a parable, a parable of my own, as you once told me one of yours, what would happen?"
"I'm sure I don't know," she laughed, "but why trouble about what may happen? A little risk gives a spice to life, and, anyhow, it can mostly be run away from at the last moment!"
"Then," said I, fairly and warmly hit by that, "it is the parable of a maid and a man, the old, old story, in a new setting. They met under cross circumstances, when things around them were difficult and their families took separate sides in politics and war. But if it had not been those very troubles they might never have met, or, what is even worse, have met too late, as maids and men often do. Perhaps trouble, because it brought them together in sympathy, also began to bring them together in heart, that being one road to affection. Love at first sight? Yes, for a winning face, an elegant figure, a silvery voice, or even a shapely foot. But that, surely, is the stuff of passion which may bloom in the morning and fade at night, not love the enduring as, I promise you, in my parable."
Marget nodded her head, unconsciously, as if some far voice were calling to her from the spreading country of red heath and green fir-trees, of dancing sunshine and rippling stream, that lay beneath us. She did not speak, and I went on:
"You do not in parables say much of people, and never by name, but I must tell you of my maid, the man, and of the other man who came between them—nearly! She was all simple charm, yet also of pulsing womanliness, the healthy product of a country life, a fair survival of many ordeals. Deep in her nature was that intense power of feeling which belongs to complete womanhood, as music belongs to an ancient fiddle. There were strings so sweet and subtle, so strange and strong, that she herself feared to play on them, and when the man appeared she greeted him as a friend, nothing more."