Now, he thought with inward satisfaction, that ghost of a money question will be laid. She has everything she wants and shall have. I want to do for her, and give her things without being wheedled into it. It is that which irritates me.
But a few days later she came to him breathless and flustered. Lo! some one had stolen all the beautiful goods he had bought her. It was neither their man nor maid. No, no! that was altogether impossible. They were honest, simple folk, who feared the gods. But they were all quite gone—where she could not say. Who had taken them, she could not guess. Perhaps she, her unworthy self, and he, his honorable augustness, had been extremely wicked in their former state, and the gods were now punishing them in their present life. It would be wicked and unavailing to attempt to search for the missing goods. It was the will of the gods. Maybe the gods had been offended at such ruthless extravagance. Ah, yes, that was a better solution of the theft. Of course the gods were angry. What gods would not be? It was sinful to buy so many things at once.
She affected great distress over the loss, and her husband, somewhat bewildered at her elaborate apologies for the thief who had stolen them, tried to comfort her by saying he would buy her double the quantity again, whereat she became very solemn.
No, no, she said. Bedder give me money to buy. I will purchase jus liddle bit each time—to please the gods.
VI
THE ADVENTURESS
The man in the hammock was not asleep, for in spite of the lazy, lounging attitude, and the hat which hid the gray eyes beneath, he was very much awake, and keenly interested in a certain small individual who was sitting on a mat a short distance removed from him. He had invited her several times to reduce that distance, but up to the present she had paid no heed to his suggestions. She was amusing herself by blowing and squeezing between her lower lip and teeth the berry of the winter cherry, from which she had deftly extracted the pulp at the stem. She continued this strange occupation in obstinate indifference to the persuasive voice from the hammock.