He stepped back with a gesture that sent Glani bounding away.
"You see," went on Connor, "I never could really understand him."
The master seized with eagerness upon this gratifying suggestion.
"It is true," he said, "that you are a little afraid of Glani. That is why none of the rest can handle him."
He stopped in the midst of his self-congratulation and directed at Connor one of those glances which the gambler could never learn to meet.
"Also," said David, "you make me happy. If you had sat on his back I should have felt your weight on my own shoulders and spirit."
He laid a hand on Connor's shoulder, but the gambler had won and lost too often with an impenetrable face to quail now. He even managed to smile.
"Hearken," said David. "My masters taught me many things, and everything they taught me must be true, for they were only voices of a mind out of another world. Yet, in spite of them," he went on kindly, "I begin to feel a kinship with you, Benjamin. Come, we will walk and talk together in the cool of the morning. Glani!"
The gray had wandered off to nibble at the turf; he whirled and came like a thrown lance.
"Glani," said David, "is usually the only living thing that walks with me in the morning; but now, my friend, we are three."