was dictated to him without a
sound, almost without a gesture. A touch of a slender, patent-leather
boot set him prancing, an imperceptible twist of the wrist and he stood
stock still, foam-necked and helpless. It was a proud--an awe-inspiring
spectacle. And it was not only her fearless strength. She was fair and
beautiful. So Robert saw her. He saw nothing else. He gazed and gazed,
heart-stricken. He did not hear Rufus speak to him, or the band which was
blaring out a Viennese waltz, an old thing, whistled and danced half to
death long since, but which, having perhaps a spark of immortal youth left
among the embers, had not lost its power to make the pulses quicken.
Indeed it even played a humble part in this great moment in Robert's life.
Though he did not hear it, it poured emotion into the heated, dusty air.
It painted the tawdry show with richer colours. It was the rider's
invisible retinue. At a touch from her heel the horse danced to it, in
perfect time, arching his great neck, and rolling his wild eyes.

She was proud, too. Robert saw how she disdained the gaping multitude.
She rode with haughtily lifted head and only once her glance, under the
white, arrogant lids, dropped for an instant. Was it chance, was it the
agonized intensity of his own gaze which drew it to the small boy almost
under her horse's hoofs? (For he had held his ground. He was not afraid.
Unlike the rest, his trust in her was limitless and unquestioning. And if
she chose to ride him down, he would not care, no more than a fanatic
worshipper beneath the wheels of a Juggernaut.) Now under her eyes his
heart stood still, his knees shook. She did not smile; she did not
recognize his naked, shameless adoration. And that too was well. A smile
would have lowered her, brought her down from her superb distance. His
happiness choked him. She was the embodiment of everything that he had
heard pass in the distance from the silent dusks of Acacia
Grove--splendour and power, laughter and music, the beat of a secret pulse
answering the tread of invisible processions. She came riding out of the
mists of his fancy into light, a living reality that he could take hold
of, and set up in his empty temple. She was not his mother, nor Francey,
nor God, but she was everything that in their vague and different ways
these three had been to him before he lost them. She was something to be
worshipped, to be died for, if necessary, with joy and pri