as talking against time, it would seem. At least she was probably
not talking of what deeply interested her just then. In truth, she had
stopped her carriage on a sudden impulse when she saw Ericson, and now
she was beginning to think that she had acted too impulsively. Until
lately she had allowed her impulses to carry her unquestioned whither
they were pleased to go.

'I suppose we had better turn back,' she said.

'I suppose so,' the Dictator answered. They stood still before turning,
and looked along the way from home.

The sky was all of a faint lemon-colour along the horizon, deepening in
some places to the very tenderest tone of pink--a pink that suggested in
a dim way that the soft lemon sky was about to see at once another dawn.
Low down on the horizon one bright white spark struck itself out against
the sky.

'What is that little light--that spark?' she asked. 'Is it a star?'

'Oh, no,' the Dictator said gravely, 'it is only an ordinary
gas-lamp--nothing more.'

'A gas-lamp? Oh, come, that is quite impossible. I mean that star, there
in the sky.'

'It is only a gas-lamp all the same,' he said. 'You will see in a
moment. It is on the brow of the road--probably the first gas-lamp on
the way into the town. Against that clear sky, with its tender tones,
the light in the street-lamp shows not orange or red, but a sparkling
white.'

'Come nearer and let us see,' she said, impatiently. 'Come, by all
means.'

So they went nearer, and the illusion was gone. It was, as he had said,
a common street-lamp.

'I am quite disappointed,' Helena said, after a moment of silence.

'But why?' he asked. 'Might not one extract a moral out of that?'

'Oh, I don't see how you could.'

'Well, let us try. The common street-lamp got its opportunity, and it
shone like a star. Isn't there a good deal of human life very like
that?'

'But what is the good of showing for once like a star when it is not a
star?'

'Ah, well, I am afraid a good deal of life's ambition would be baffled
if everyone were to take that view of things.'

'But isn't it the right view?'

'To the higher sense, yes--but the ambition of most men is to be taken
for the star, at all events.'

'That is, mistaken for the star,' she said.

'Yes, if you will--mistaken for the star.'

'I am sure that is not your ambition,' she said warmly. 'I am sure you
would rather be the star mistaken at a distance by some stupid creature
for a gas-lamp, than the ga