“Not much falling in love there,” confessed Adam, with a laugh. “But, Genie, you mustn’t think Indians can’t love each other. For they can.”
“I believe I’ve seen birds falling in love,” went on Genie, seriously. “I’ve watched them when they come to drink and wash. Quail and road runners, now—they often come in pairs, and they act funny. At least one of each pair acted funny. But it was the pretty one—the one with a topknot—that did all the falling in love. Why?”
“Well, Genie, the male, or the man-bird, so to speak, always has brighter colors and crests and the like, and he—he sort of shines up to the other, the female, and shows off before her.”
“Why doesn’t she do the same thing?” queried Genie. “That’s not fair. It’s all one-sided.”
“Child, how you talk! Of course love isn’t one-sided,” declared Adam, getting bewildered.
“Yes, it is. She ought to show off before him. But I’ll tell you what—after they began to build a nest I never saw any more falling in love. It’s a shame. It ought to last always. I’ve heard mother say things to father I couldn’t understand. But now I believe she meant that after he got her—married her—he wasn’t like he was before.”
Adam had to laugh. The old discontent of life, the old mystery of the sexes, the old still, sad music of humanity spoken by the innocent and unknowing lips of this child! How feminine! The walls of the inclosing desert, like those of an immense cloister, might hide a woman all her days from the illuminating world, but they could never change her nature.
“Genie, I must be honest with you,” replied Adam. “I’ve got to be parents, brother, sister, friend, everybody to you. And I’ll fall short sometimes in spite of my intentions. But I’ll be honest.... And the fact is, it seems to be a sad truth that men and man-birds, and man-creatures generally, are all very much alike. If they want anything, they want it badly. And when they fall in love they do act funny. They will do anything. They show off, beg, bully, quarrel, are as nice and sweet as—as sugar; and they’ll fight, too, until they get their particular wives. Then they become natural—like they were before. It’s my idea, Genie, that all the wives of creation should demand always the same deportment which won their love. Don’t you agree with me?”
“I do, you bet. That’s what I’ll have.... But will I ever be falling in love?”
The eyes that looked into Adam’s then were to him as the wonder of the world.