"Yes, Ladykin," you said, "I have come home, and I am very tired, and I am very sad, and I am very lonesome, and I have not been a very good boy. But please be good to me! I am so lonesome I cannot wait to make love to you. Oh, _please_, _please_ love me _n-o-w_. I _need_ you to love me N-O-W!" Ladykin frowned. It was not a cross frown. It was just a sort of a cosy corner for her thoughts. Surprise cuddled there, and a sorry feeling, and a great tenderness. "You have not been a very good boy?" she repeated after you. The memory of a year crowded blackly upon you. "No," you said, "I have not been a very good boy, and I am very suffering-sad. But _please_ love me, and forgive me. No one has ever loved me!" The surprise and the sorry feeling in Ladykin's forehead crowded together to make room for something that was just _womanliness_. She began to smile. It was the smile of a hurt person when the opiate first begins to overtake the pain. "Oh, I'm sure it was an accidental badness," she volunteered softly. "If I were accidentally bad, you would forgive _me_, wouldn't you?" "Oh, yes, yes, yes," you stammered, and reached up your lonesome hands to her. "Then you don't have to make love," she whispered. "It's all made," and slipped down into your arms. But something troubled her, and after a minute she pushed you away and tried to renounce you. "But it is not Thursday," she sobbed; "it is Wednesday; and my name is not 'Clarice'; it is Ladykin." Then all the boyishness died out of you--the sweet, idle reveries, the mystic responsibilities. You shook your Father's dream from your eyes, and squared your shoulders for your own realities. "A Man must make his own Happy-Day," you cried, "and a Man must choose his own Mate!" Before your vehemence Ladykin winced back against the rock and eyed you fearsomely. "Oh, I will love you and cherish you," you pleaded. But Ladykin shook her head. "That is not enough," she whispered. There was a kind of holy scorn in her eyes. Then a White Gull flashed like an apparition before your sight. Ladykin's whole figure drooped, her cheek paled, her little mouth quivered, her vision narrowed. There with her eyes on the White Gull and your eyes fixed on hers, you saw her shy thoughts journey into the Future. You saw her eyes smile, sadden, brim with tears, smile again, and come homing back to you with a timid, glad surprise as she realized that your thoughts too had gone all the long journey with her. She reached out one little hand to you. It was very cold. "If I should pass like the flash of a white wing," she questioned, "would you be true to me--and _mine_?" The Past, the Present, the Future rushed over you in tumult. Your lips could hardly crowd so big a vow into so small a word. "Oh, YES, YES, YES!" you cried. In reverent mastery you raised her face to yours. "A Man must make his own Happy-Day," you repeated. "A Man must make his own Happy-Day!"