"Oh, contented! Nobody's contented except the blind, and hopeless invalids. Contentment is a question of being a sport. There's a lot of good losers that will grin if they have to walk home in the rain from the races, and there are a lot of what they call 'bum sports' that throw their winnings on the ground because the odds weren't longer. But don't tell me that there's any special joy in being poor. If I had to be poor, I suppose I'd put the best face I could on it. That happens to be my nature. It's the good sports making the best of poverty that cause so much talk; but all the poor and middlers that I've met have hated it and envied the rich.
"You see, the rich can buy everything the poor have, but the poor can buy hardly anything the rich have. Sometimes my father goes out in the field on his farm and tosses hay, or beds down the horses, or chops dead trees. Sometimes he likes to have just a bowl of milk and some crackers for his supper. But when he wants something else he can have it—at least, he always has been able to—up to now."
A little shiver agitated her like a flaw of wind running along a calm lake.
"It's cold and damp in here," she said. "Let's get out in the sunshine and quit talking poverty. We're neither of us poor—yet."
She rose and moved out to the kitchen porch, and, round the house, up a sweep of stairs to the main terrace.
"Look," she cried, "isn't it wonderful? Isn't it worth while? It costs thousands of dollars just to make that lawn smooth, and thousands more for the marble balustrades, and the fountains are a fortune, and the sunken garden—the poor can't have a glimpse of it! They don't know it exists. Even Mr. Enslee's cook hardly knows it's here; he doesn't permit any of the servants except the house staff to come out front. Isn't it a shame? But don't you love it? Isn't it heavenly under your feet? My eyes fly over it like birds. It's splendid to have tea out here in the summer, and wear long sweeping gowns and picture-hats, and have delicious things brought to you on the finest of china. Oh, I never was meant for a poor man's daughter. Even if I feed the chickens or pat the cattle, I like to do it as Marie Antoinette did at the Petit Trianon just for a contrast—an hors d'œuvre."
Forbes thought of the bird of paradise and the sea-gull again, and he doubted the value of his cage again. They sauntered across the lawn and up the stairs. He took her arm to help her, but she shook her head.
"Please! Now, tell me all about yourself."
"There's nothing to tell."
"There must be. I've a right to hear it. Think of it, you've kissed me once, and I didn't fight. I let you. Good Lord, I nearly kissed you!" His arms rushed toward her; but she frowned. "Don't make me go back. I was saying, you've kissed me, and we've had a terrible escapade in a strange kitchen, and I hardly know your first name. So you're a soldier." He nodded. "West Point?" He nodded. "Did you ever get in a real fight?" He nodded. "Where?"