“Oh, Treevor, that awful bull; where is it now?  It can’t get at us, can it?”

“No, poor brute,” I answered.  “You are safe enough now, Suzee; you are miles away from the bull-ring.”

She was trembling so much she could hardly walk up the stairs to our room, and when we got there I made her go to bed while I sat by her putting cold compresses on her head.  She complained of such pain in it, I was afraid that the fright and shock would do her serious harm.

I sat up with her through the night, and towards morning she fell into a tranquil sleep.

I paced up and down the quiet room lighted only by the night light, thinking over the horrid scene of the afternoon, and when it grew to be day I was hungering so for a companion to speak to and to feel with me, that I drew out my writing-case and wrote a long letter to Viola.

CHAPTER XI

THE WAY OF THE GODS

“But, Treevor, I am so very dull when you go out, and when you are working it is as bad.  I do miss my baby so to play with.”

“You did not strike me as a very devoted mother when I saw you at Sitka,” I answered.

“Oh, Treevor, he was a very fine boy, and I took so much care of him.  Was he not a very large child?”

“Yes, he certainly was, and with a dreadful voice and a furious temper.  It’s no use worrying me, Suzee, about the matter.  I dislike children very much, and I do not wish nor intend to have any of my own.”

Suzee began to cry in the easy way she had.  She seemed able to commence and leave off just when she chose.

“You are a little goose,” I said jestingly.  “You don’t know when you are well off.  For months and months you would be ill and disfigured, unable to come about with me or be my companion, unable to sit to me for my painting, and afterwards the child would be an unendurable tie and burden.  Besides, as I say, I have an intense dislike to children and could never live with one anywhere near me.  I am afraid, if you want them, you must go away from me, to some one who has your views.”

Suzee came over to where I was sitting and knelt beside my chair, clasping both hands round my arm.

“Treevor,” she said, almost in a whisper, “you are so beautiful with your straight face, every line in it is so straight, quite straight; and your black hair and your dark eyes and your dark eyebrows.  I want that for my baby.  I want a son just like you; he must be just like you, and then I should be so happy.”

As she spoke, the lines of a poetess flashed across me, indistinctly remembered—­“beauty that women seek after ... that they may give to the world again.”

Was this the reason of woman’s love of beauty in men?  Ah, not with all women!  Viola loved beauty, as I did, as all artists do, as they love their art, for itself alone.

I stroked her smooth shining hair, gently, and shook my head, smiling down upon her.