on the vistas of the new world, the crude Western
continent, as they had been fixed for centuries on the sands of the
pathless desert, on the shifting sands that relentlessly effaced
footsteps of artist and Pharaoh, dynasty and race.

Who knew who had made this wonder?

How small and puny Cedersholm seemed in his pepper-and-salt suit, his
_boutonniere_ and single eye-glass, his trembling heart. His heart
trembled, but only Fairfax knew it; he felt that he held it between his
hands. "He must have thought I was dead," he reflected. "What difference
did it make," Fairfax thought, "whether or not the Egyptian who had hewn
the Sphinx had murdered another man for stealing his renown? After four
thousand years, all the footsteps were effaced." His heart grew
somewhat lighter, and between himself and the unknown sculptor there
seemed a bond of union.

The students and the master had drifted away. Cedersholm was in the
midst of his friends. Fairfax would not have put out his hand to take
his laurel. His spirit and soul had gone into communion with a greater
sculptor of the Sphinx, the unknown Egyptian. Standing apart from the
crowd where Cedersholm was being congratulated, Fairfax remarked the
lady again, and that she stood alone as was he. She seemed pensive,
turning her lace parasol between her hands, her eyes on the ground. The
young man supposed her to be dreaming of her lover's greatness. He
recalled the day, two years ago, when with Bella and Gardiner he had
come up before the opening in the earth prepared for the pedestal.
"Wait, wait, my hearties!" he had said.

Well, one of them had gone on, impatient, to the unveiling of greater
wonders, and Antony had come to his unclaimed festival alone....

CHAPTER XXVI

He said to Rainsford at luncheon, over nuts and raisins, and coffee as
black as George Washington's smiling face--

"I reckon you think I've got a heart of cotton, don't you? I reckon you
think I don't come up to the scratch, do you, old man? I assure you that
I went down to New York seeing scarlet. I had made my plans. Afterward,
mind you, Rainsford, not of course before a whole lot of people,--but in
his own studio, I intended to tell Cedersholm a few truths. Upon my
honour, I believe I _could_ have killed him."

Rainsford held a pecan nut between the crackers which he pressed slowly
as he listened to his friend. Antony's big hand was spread out on the
table; its grip would have been powerful on