side, and leaving Dick to her father--from
gate to gate outside the Mosque-Cathedral which once made Cordoba the
Mecca of Europe; gazing up at the tremendous mass of honey-coloured
masonry rising like a vast fortress from its buttresses of stone;
lingering under the bell-tower of the Puerta del Perdon because Pilar
"felt as if something would happen there." But nothing did happen; and we
went to face the blighting of renewed hopes in the Court of Oranges, whose
melancholy charm and sensuous perfume was sad as the song of a nightingale
when summer is dying.

She was not there; nor could we find her in the marble forest of the
pillared cathedral, though, while Dick and Pilar made up their differences
over the jewelled mosaics, I searched for her.

"I tell you, Ramon, there's some satisfaction in feeling that you're
looking at the best things the world's got to show," said Dick, almost in
my ear, "and there are lots of them in your country, especially in
Cordoba, though I suppose the Moors would weep to see it now. But you
don't seem to be enjoying them, in spite of risking such a lot to come
where they are."

I didn't remind him that the risk I ran was for the one best thing in all
the world, which was only temporarily in my country, and that my
depression came because it was not at the moment visible. But Pilar did
not need reminding, and in the way of sweet women, tried to "keep my mind
occupied" by talking history and legend, confusing them deliciously, and
defending her stories of beautiful Egilona and fair Florinda by saying
that, anyhow, nobody cared whether they were true or not. Besides, what
_was_ history, since dull people were continually discovering that none of
the best bits had ever happened?

"I choose to believe in Florinda," she cried, "and all the other beautiful
women who influenced kings, and made wars, and upset countries. Without
them and their love-stories, history would be like faded tapestry without
gold threads."

So Dick ceased to argue, and in silence we left the gem-like perfection of
the third Mihrab, to wander once more through the wilderness of gleaming
columns that were now like over-arching trees, now like falling fountains.

No dusky vista out of those many changing ones framed the figure I longed
to see; and when we had left the cathedral and climbed to the gardens and
towers where stood once the Alcazar of Gothic and Moorish glories, it was
the same story of disappointment. Only