Peter happened to be engaged in the amiable pastime of tossing
bread-crumbs to his goldfinches.
But a score or so of sparrows, vulture-like, lurked under cover
of the neighbouring foliage, to dash in viciously, at the
critical moment, and snatch the food from the finches' very
mouths.
The Duchessa watched this little drama for a minute, smiling,
in silent meditation: while Peter--who, for a wonder, had his
back turned to the park of Ventirose, and, for a greater wonder
still perhaps, felt no pricking in his thumbs--remained
unconscious of her presence.
At last, sorrowfully, (but there was always a smile at the back
of her eyes), she shook her head.
"Oh, the pirates, the daredevils," she sighed.
Peter started; faced about; saluted.
"The brigands," said she, with a glance towards the sparrows'
outposts.
"Yes, poor things," said he.
"Poor things?" cried she, indignant. "The unprincipled little
monsters!"
"They can't help it," he pleaded for them. "'It is their
nature to.' They were born so. They had no choice."
"You actually defend them!" she marvelled, rebukefully.
"Oh, dear, no," he disclaimed. "I don't defend them. I defend
nothing. I merely recognise and accept. Sparrows--finches.
It's the way of the world--the established division of the
world."
She frowned incomprehension.
"The established division of the world--?"
"Exactly," said he. "Sparrows--finches the snatchers and the
snatched-from. Everything that breathes is either a sparrow or
a finch. 'T is the universal war--the struggle for existence
--the survival of the most unscrupulous. 'T is a miniature
presentment of what's going on everywhere in earth and sky."
She shook her head again.
"YOU see the earth and sky through black spectacles, I 'm
afraid," she remarked, with a long face. But there was still
an underglow of amusement in her eyes.
"No," he answered, "because there's a compensation. As you
rise in the scale of moral development, it is true, you pass
from the category of the snatchers to the category of the
snatched-from, and your ultimate extinction is assured. But,
on the other hand, you gain talents and sensibilities. You do
not live by bread alone. These goldfinches, for a case in
point, can sing--and they have your sympathy. The sparrows can
only make a horrid noise--and you contemn them. That is the
compensation. The snatchers can never know the joy of singing
--or of being pitied by ladies."
"N . . . o, perhaps not," she consented doubtfully. The
underglow of amusement in her eyes shone nearer to the surface.
"But--but they can never know, either, the despair of the
singer when his songs won't come."