David had obeyed him with childlike docility, and sat now like a pupil about to be corrected by the master.
"That point is this," explained Connor gravely. "You have the wrong idea. As far as I can make out, you like Ruth?"
"It is a weak word. Bah! It is not enough."
"But it's enough to tell her. You see, men outside of the Garden don't talk to a girl the way you do, and it embarrasses her to have you talk about her all the time."
"Is it true?" murmured the penitent David. "Then what should I have said?"
"Well—er—you might have said—that the flower went pretty well in her hair, and let it go at that."
"But it was more, more, more! Benjamin, my brother, these hands of mine picked that very flower. And I see that it has pleased her. She had taken it up and placed it in her hair. It changes her. My flower brings her close to me. It means that we have found a thing which pleases us both. Just as you and I, Benjamin, are drawn together by the love of one horse. So that flower in her hair is a great sign. I dwell upon it. It is like a golden moon rising in a black night. It lights my way to her. Words rush up from my heart, but cannot express what I mean!"
"Let it go! Let it go!" said Connor hastily, brushing his way through this outflow of verbiage, like a man bothered with gnats. "I gather what you mean. But the point is that about nine-tenths of what you think you'd better not say. If you want to talk—well, talk about yourself. That's what I most generally do with a girl. They like to hear a man say what he's done."
"Myself!" said David heavily. "Talk of a dead stump when there is a great tree beside it? Well, I see that I have much to learn."
"You certainly have," said Connor with much meaning. "I'd hate to turn you loose in Manhattan."