Vana rose from that couch of skins. “Whether one goes or stays there are many to watch against.... A lion and a lioness and their cubs....”
“What put that into your heart?” asked Mardurbo.
“I do not know..... How large is the heart, seeing that everything finds room?” She moved from the couch to the door, stood upon the threshold and looked at the town asleep.
Mardurbo followed her. “I want to talk. In there the others will waken.”
Vana let fall behind them the mat that made the door. She sat down upon the threshold step, and Mardurbo beside her. The breathing was now withdrawn. In front of them lay the hot, still night with nothing moving save a dog by a distant wall.
“I should have drunk sweetness upon this journey,” said Mardurbo, “but instead I have drunk bitterness.—Why should not my riches go to my children?”
“Why not? Why not?”
“Saba the harp-player says, and all men know, that women are seen to be mothers of their children. But men are not seen to be fathers. So we count from our mothers, knowing that we are theirs. Men must take it from women that they are fathers. It is ‘faith,’ like ‘faith’ when we ask from the Powers.”
“Do you not know that the five are yours and mine? They are yours and mine.”
“I have ‘faith,’” answered Mardurbo.