eater than pity welled up within him. Rosa Mundi's guardian angel
had somehow reached his heart.

People were pouring into the place. He saw that it was going to be
packed. And outside, lining the whole length of the Pier, they were
waiting for her too, waiting to strew her path with, roses.

Ah! she was coming! Above the wash of the sea there rose a roar of
voices. They were giving her the homage of a queen. He listened to the
frantic cheering, and again it was Rosa Mundi, splendid and brilliant,
who filled his thoughts as she filled the thoughts of all just then.

The cheering died down, and there came a great press of people into the
back of the building. The lights were lowered, but he heard the
movement, the buzz of a delighted crowd.

Suddenly the orchestra burst into loud music. They were playing "Queen
of the Earth," he remembered later. The curtain went up. And in a blaze
of light he saw Rosa Mundi.

Something within him sprang into quivering life. Something which till
that moment he had never known awoke and gripped him with a force
gigantic. She was robed in shimmering, transparent gold--a queen-woman,
slight indeed, dainty, fairy-like--yet magnificent. Over her head,
caught in a jewelled fillet, there hung a filmy veil of gold, half
revealing, half concealing, the smiling face behind. Trailing wisps of
golden gossamer hung from her beautiful arms. Her feet were bound with
golden sandals. And on her breast were roses--golden roses.

She was exquisite as a dream. He gazed and gazed upon her as one
entranced. The tumult of acclamation that greeted her swept by him
unheeded. He was conscious only of a passionate desire to fling back the
golden veil that covered her and see the laughing face behind. Its
elusiveness mocked him. She was like a sunbeam standing there, a
flitting, quivering shaft of light, too spiritual to be grasped fully,
almost too dazzling for the eye to follow.

The applause died down to a dead silence. Her audience watched her with
bated breath. Her dance was a thing indescribable. Courteney could think
of nothing but the flashing of morning sunlight upon running water to
the silver strains of a flute that was surely piped by Pan. He could not
follow the sparkling wonder of her. He felt dazed and strangely
exhilarated, almost on fire with this new, fierce attraction. It was as
if the very soul were being drawn out of his body. She called to him,
she lured him, she bewitched him.

When