eeze had sprung up, raising minute particles of
sand which caused the elfland on the horizon to quiver like a mirage.

"It is a dream-city," said I, in admiration.

Carlotta did not reply. I thought she had not heard. We jogged on a
little in silence. At last she drew very close to me.

"Shall we ever get there?" she asked, pointing ahead with the hand that
held the reins.

"To Mogador? Yes, I hope so," I answered with a laugh. I thought she was
tired.

"No, not Mogador. The dream-city--where every one wants to get."

"You have travelled far, my dear," said I, "to hanker now after
dream-cities and the unattainable. I knew a little girl once who would
have asked: 'What is a dream-city?"

"She doesn't ask now because she knows," replied Carlotta. "No. We shall
never get there. It looks as if we were riding straight into it--but
when we get close, it will just be Mogador."

"Aren't you happy, Carlotta?" I asked.

"Are you, Seer Marcous?"

"I? I am a philosopher, my child, and a happy philosopher would be a
_lusus naturae_, a freak, a subject for a Barnum & Bailey Show. If
they caught him they would put him between the hairy man and the living
skeleton."

"I suppose I'm getting to be a philosopher, too," said Carlotta, "and
I hate it! Sometimes I think I hate everything and everybody--save you,
Seer Marcous, darling. It's wicked of me. I must have been born wicked.
But I used to be happy. I never wanted to go to dream-cities. I was just
like a cat. Like Polyphemus. Do you remember Polyphemus?"

"Yes," said I. And then set off my balance by this strange conversation
with Carlotta, I added: "I killed him."

She turned a startled face to me.

"You killed him? Why?"

"He laughed at me because I was unhappy," said I.

"Through me?"

"Yes; through you. But that's neither here nor there. We were not
discussing the death of Polyphemus. We were talking about being
philosophers, and you said that as a philosopher you hated everything
and everybody except me. Why do you exclude me, Carlotta?"

We were riding so near together that my leg rubbed her saddle-girth.
I looked hard at her. She turned away her head and put the pantomime
parasol between us. I heard a little choking sob.

"Let us get off--and sit down a little--I want to cry.

"The end of all feminine philosophy," I said, somewhat brutally. "No.
It's getting late. That's only Mogador in front of us. Let us go to it."

Carlotta shifted her parasol quic