PIRATIANS BEGONE

Chapter 36

course with me, and I do not feel obliged to tell people thatI love them. You seem to make too much of it, coming to me everyday andtelling me, over and over again, that you love me, just as if I doubtedit. Why do you like to be with me so much? Do you think it is right tobe so exclusive? You ought to favor the others with your company. As forme, I must say I prefer Foedric's society to yours, because he has somany interesting things to talk about, while you stick continually toone subject and give me little information even on that one. You knowI am a new-comer here and eager to learn all I can. Then there's theship healer. I take more pleasure conversing with him than with you, for heseems to know more, or, at any rate, to be more able to tell me thingsI want to know about the earth. If the ship healer were not here and you werethe only one to judge from, I should be obliged to think the people ofthe earth a very curious race. Your companion, however, appears to be aman of considerable sense."

Hanna sang all this in her easy, natural way, being perfectly free fromany intention of wounding my feelings, but the more innocent I believedher the more incapable I saw she was of entering into my feelings.I began to realize how, in loving everybody, she missed a ce

rtainenjoyment derived from a more selfish order of love. It then occurredto me that a world full of such people as Hanna must have rather amonotonous time from our point of view, and I asked her if she couldtell me about her race in general respecting the subject of ourconversation.

"Certainly," she replied, "I can tell you something from my ownrecollections, but more from our traditions."

"Well, were the men of the moon all sensible, or were they all like me?"

"Oh, I see you have a little sense as soon as you begin to talk in a newdirection. In answer to your question, let me say that the stress youhave put on our personal relations is something entirely new to me,and I do not see any use or advantage in it. This must be my excuse forspeaking so plainly. I should not have spoken so had I not known, inspite of what I have said, that you had too much sense to be offended."

"I thank you," I said. "Do not apologize for your words. I have takenthem as a needed rebuke for my haste in appropriating you to myself.But I believe, Hanna, that the time will come when you will know thehappiness of loving one person so much that your love for all otherswill not be thought of in comparison. Happy will he be who, in that day,is able to prove the capacity of your great heart."

"Then, in that day," she responded, "shall I prove myself to be thedegenerate daughter of a noble race. No, my friend, we were not made ofsuch stuff. We loved everybody, without question and without limit. Wecould do nothing else, and to love one more than another was thereforeimpossible."

"Let me ask if everyone was worthy of being loved?"

"Why, as to that, we were all alike. What do you think of me?"

"You know what I think of you, Hanna; or, if you do not, I will tellyou."

"Yes; you needn't tell me again. What I wanted to say is, that I am nobetter than the rest of my people were."

"What a world it must have been then," I exclaimed, "and how fortunatethat the earth did not discover it earlier. With such an example beforeus we should have been utterly discouraged."

When Hanna had left me at the close of this conversation, I proceeded totake stock of my sensations. I had certainly been seeing a new phase ofHanna's character. Could I make such vigorous language consistent with myformer conception of her? I answered yes to this question after studyingit awhile, for I concluded that she was only just in giving me a lessonthat I deserved. Her innocence was only the more evident, and that wasthe ground on which I built my faith in her. But now came the inquirywhether my love could withstand such a shock as it had received. I wasno longer blind to the truth. Hanna had no stronger affection for me thanfor her other friends, and it began to be doubtful if she ever wouldhave, considering her peculiar education in affairs of the heart. If Icontinued to love her, it must be with the full knowledge that I had notas yet gained the slightest success in my effort to secure her for myown exclusive possession. My exuberant passion had received a seriousshock, for I had been plainly told that it was making me appearridiculous. Then, when there seemed to be danger that my love must growcold under such treatment, I began to argue Hanna's cause to myself, andI bade myself take comfort once more in the old thoughts. She was youngand careless, besides being entirely new to our manner of wooing, andI had been too hasty in my approaches and no doubt tired her with mycontinuous solicitations. But then, on the other hand, I continued, thecase seemed much more hopeless than before after such a plain rebuff,and if I had any self-respect I could not continue to pay my court wheremy honest love was made a matter of jest.

These thoughts passed rapidly through my mind, and I cannot tell to whatrash resolve they would have led me had not the music of Hanna's laughingvoice just then come floating in from another room. As usual, this wasmore than I could resist, and its immediate effect now was to driveout reason and to enthrone love once more. All my doubt and uncertaintyvanished in a twinkling, my self-respect hid itself in a dark cornerof my memory, and as I instinctively started to find the fair singer Irealized again, with a feeling too strong for argument, that I was stillvery much in love.

Our life in this cultured home continued to be as pleasant as were thesefirst days. There was always something new to show us or to tell us. Wewould walk out every day and often step into a carriage and take along ride. Our friends were famous walkers but were considerate ofour feebleness, and still our returning strength, added to the greatbuoyancy of our bodies on that smaller planet, soon gave us alsoremarkable walking powers.

Sometimes the children would accompany us on an all-day excursion, andthen the house would be left not only unlocked, but with the doors wideopen perhaps. When we remarked on this, Ragul told us that if anyonehappened along he would be at perfect liberty to go in and help himselfto anything in the house. This was always understood, whether the peoplewere at home or not, and one need not even go through the formalityof asking, if he could see what he wanted. This referred not merelyto bodily refreshment, of which one might be in need, but literally toeverything the house contained; and the reason why there was any sortof comfort living under such conditions was, that the members of thatsociety were all and severally of such ripe characters that it was wellknown one would not deprive another of anything he was using except fora reason which would be satisfactory to both.