n, the intangible effluvium of
excitement which precedes the arousing of the crowd. Quite suddenly the
spirits of people were raised to fever pitch; the boisterous vigor of
the Saxons was infectious.

Nicanor soon lost sight of Nicodemus. He stood among the people,
regarding the scene with eyes of detachment. As always in a crowd, an
odd sense of impersonality possessed him, of aloofness; in it he was
forgetful of his own presence, of his own corporeality; became as a Mind
seeking out its own. Here and there he was recalled by a man's greeting;
here and there also a woman spoke. Everywhere he was hailed cheerily, as
one comrade by another. Jests were passed to him, for which he gave as
good as he got. There was that in their intercourse with him which
proved him one of themselves, an intimate sharer in their pleasures,
their sorrows, their lives. Yet he was the man who not so many years
before had in this place been baited as men bait a bear--the surlier,
the better sport.

A red-lipped flower-girl, on the way home from her day's business in
Londinium with her basket of remaining blossoms, was pressed against his
shoulder in the outer edge of the crowd that watched the Saxons feed, as
boys gather to see the wild beasts of the arena tear their meat. She
turned, saw him, and laughed with gay raillery.

"Couldst even thou, O Silver-tongued, make of these great guzzling
cattle a tale?"

He looked at her with quick artist joy in the vivid color and effect of
her,--red lips, cheeks as brilliant as her roses, black eyes, midnight
hair in which a crimson flower was tangled. In her laughing glance, her
care-free joyous innocence, he caught a hint, gone as swiftly as it
come, of that Other who held his soul. Now he understood the heart and
inmost meaning of it; it was the all-compelling Womanhood, the sacred
spark, guarded and precious, which set men's hearts aflame; and for him,
henceforth, because of that one, it made all women sacred. He answered
her, banter for banter.

"What would the world be without cattle, O Flower-maiden? And why not a
tale? There is a tale in all things, if one but look to find it--in
every bud and leaf and flower--in these Saxons--in thee, little sister
to the rose!"

"That is pretty," she cried, dimpling. "Here is a bloom in payment; once
it was as fragrant as thy words. May they never lose sweetness like a
flower which fadeth!"

Reaching up, she thrust a flower behind his ear, as a young fop