“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.”  He was silent.

“You are a good little girl, Bebee, I can see.” he said at last, with a graver sound in his voice.  “And who is this Annemie for whom you do so much? an old woman, I suppose.”

“Oh, yes, quite old; incredibly old.  Her man was drowned at sea sixty years ago, and she watches for his brig still, night and morning.”

“The dog’s heart.  No doubt he beat her, and had a wife in fifty other ports.”

“Oh, no!” said Bebee, with a little cry, as though the word against the dead man hurt her.  “She has told me so much of him.  He was as good as good could be, and loved her so, and between the voyages they were so happy.  Surely that must have been sixty years now, and she is so sorry still, and still will not believe that he was drowned.”