“What _more?_” he cried out, throwing up his arms. “What _more,_ Mary! Why, it isn't life at all, this deadly, petty intricate day by day, surrounded by things, and more things. The hopeless, unalterable tameness of it!” He began to pace the room. “But, my dear, I don't understand you. We have love, and work, and if some part of our life is petty, why, every one's always has been, hasn't it?” She was deeply moved by his distress, afraid again for their happiness, longing to comfort him. Yet, under and apart from all these emotions, some cool little faculty of criticism wondered if he was not making rather a theatrical scene. “Daily life must be a little monotonous, mustn't it?” she urged again, trying to help him. “No!” he almost shouted, with a gesture of fierce repudiation. “Was Angelo's life petty? Was da Vinci's? Did Columbus live monotonously, did Scott or Peary? Does any explorer or traveler? Did Thoreau surround himself with _things_--to hamper--did George Borrow, or Whitman, or Stevenson? Do you suppose Rodin, or de Musset, or Rousseau, or Millet, or any one else who has ever _lived_, cared whether they had a position, a house, horses, old furniture? All the world's wanderers, from Ulysses down to the last tramp who knocked at this door, have known more of life than all your generations of staid conventional county families! Oh, Mary”--he leant across the table toward her, and his voice pleaded--“think of what life _should_ be. Think of the peasants in France treading out the wine. Think of ships, and rivers, and all the beauty of the forests. Think of dancing, of music, of that old viking who first found America. Think of those tribes who wander with their tents over the desert and pitch them under stars as big as lamps--all the things we've never seen, Mary, the songs we've never heard. The colors, the scents, and the cruel tang of life! All these I want to see and feel, and translate into pictures. I want you with me, Mary--beautiful and free--I want us to drink life eagerly together, as if it were heady wine.” He took her hand across the table. “You'll come, Beloved, you'll give all the little things up, and come?” She rose, her face pitifully white. They stood with hands clasped, the table between them. “The boy, Stefan?” He laughed, thinking he had won her. “Bring him, too, as the Arab women carry theirs, in a shawl. We'll leave him here and there, and have him with us whenever we stay long in one place.” She pulled her hand away, her eyes filled with tears. “I love you, Stefan, but I can't bring my child up like a gipsy. I'll live in France, or anywhere you say, but I must have a home--I can't be a wanderer.” “You shall have a home, sweetheart, to keep coming back to.” His face was brightening to eagerness.