have not,
I assure you."

"No!"

She was a little disappointed. It seemed such an immense thing to her;
and she had lain awake all the night, turning it about in her little
brain, and appealing vainly for help in it to the sixteen sleep-angels.

"No, indeed. And where are you going so fast, as if those wooden shoes of
yours were sandals of Mercury?"

"Mercury--is that a shoemaker?"

"No, my dear. He did a terrible bit of cobbling once, when he made
Woman. But he did not shoe her feet with swiftness that I know of; she
only runs away to be run after, and if you do not pursue her, she comes
back--always."

Bebee did not understand at all.

"I thought God made women," she said, a little awe-stricken.

"You call it God. People three thousand years ago called it Mercury or
Hermes. Both mean the same thing,--mere words to designate an unknown
quality. Where are you going? Does your home lie here?"

"Yes, onward, quite far onward," said Bebee, wondering that he had
forgotten all she had told him the day before about her hut, her garden,
and her neighbors. "You did not come and finish your picture to-day: why
was that? I had a rosebud for you, but it is dead now."

"I went to Anvers. You looked for me a little, then?"

"Oh, all day long. For I was so afraid I had been ungrateful."

"That is very pretty of you. Women are never grateful, my dear, except
when they are very ill-treated. Mercury, whom we were talking of, gave
them, among other gifts, a dog's heart."

Bebee felt bewildered; she did not reason about it, but the idle,
shallow, cynical tone pained her by its levity and its unlikeness to
the sweet, still, gray summer evening.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" he pursued. "The night is cool, and it is
only seven o'clock. I will walk part of the way with you."

"I am in a hurry because I have Annemie's patterns to do," said Bebee,
glad that he spoke of a thing that she knew how to answer. "You see,
Annemie's hand shakes and her eyes are dim, and she pricks the pattern
all awry and never perceives it; it would break her heart if one showed
her so, but the Baes would not take them as they are; they are of no use
at all. So I prick them out myself on fresh paper, and the Baes thinks it
is all her doing, and pays her the same money, and she is quite content.
And as I carry the patterns to and fro for her, because she cannot walk,
it is easy to cheat her like that; and it is no harm to cheat _so_, you
know."