"Why, what is that?" said Gabriella, led sadly astray. "A woman!" said David solemnly, turning red. Gabriella fled into the uttermost caves of silence. "And there was only one thing ever made for woman." "I understand perfectly." David felt rebuffed. He hardly knew why. But after a moment or two of silence he went on, still advancing with rough paces toward his goal:-- "Sometimes," he said mournfully, "it's harder for a man to get the only thing in the world that was ever made for him than anything else! This difficulty, however, appertains exclusively to the human species." Gabriella touched her handkerchief quickly to her lips and held it there. "But then, many curious things are true of our species," he continued, with his eyes on the fire and in the manner of a soliloquy, "that never occur elsewhere. A man, for instance, is the only animal that will settle comfortably down for the rest of its days to live on the exertions of the female." "It shows how a woman likes to be depended on," said Gabriella, with her deep womanliness. "Tom-cats of the fireside," said David, "who are proud of what fat mice their wives feed them on. It may show what you say in the nature of the woman. But what does it show in the nature of the man?" "That depends." "I don't think it depends," replied David. "I think it is either one of the results of Christianity or a survival of barbarism. As one of the results of Christianity, it demonstrates what women will endure when they are imposed upon. As a relic of barbarism--when it happens in our country--why not regard it as derived from the North American Indians? The chiefs lounged around the house and smoked the best tobacco and sent the squaws out to work for them. Occasionally they broke silence by briefly declaring that they thought themselves immortal." Gabriella tried to draw the conversation into other channels, but David was not to be diverted. "It has been a great fact in the history of your sex," he said, looking across at her, with a shake of his head, as though she did not appreciate the subject, "that idea that everything in the universe was made for Man." "Why?" inquired Gabriella, resigning herself to the perilous and the irresistible. "Well, in old times it led men to think that since everything else belonged to them, so did woman: therefore when they wanted her they did not ask for her; they took her." "It is much better arranged at present, whatever the reason." "Now a man cannot always get one, even when he asks for her," and David turned red again and knotted his hands. "I am so glad the schoolhouse was not damaged by the storm," observed Gabriella, reflecting. David fell into a revery but presently awoke. "There are more men than women in the world. On an average, that is only a fraction of a woman to every man. Still the men cannot take care of them. But it ought to be a real pleasure to every man to take care of an entire woman."