ready with
words. But about you--there is something. It is Wonder. Your sleep--your
awakening. These things are miracles. To me at least--and to all the
common people. You who lived and suffered and died, you who were a
common citizen, wake again, live again, to find yourself Master almost
of the earth."

"Master of the earth," he said. "So they tell me. But try and imagine
how little I know of it."

"Cities--Trusts--the Labour Company--"

"Principalities, powers, dominions--the power and the glory. Yes, I have
heard them shout. I know. I am Master. King, if you wish. With Ostrog,
the Boss--"

He paused.

She turned upon him and surveyed his face with a curious scrutiny.
"Well?"

He smiled. "To take the responsibility."

"That is what we have begun to fear." For a moment she said no more.
"No," she said slowly. "You will take the responsibility. You will take
the responsibility. The people look to you."

She spoke softly. "Listen! For at least half the years of your sleep--in
every generation--multitudes of people, in every generation greater
multitudes of people, have prayed that you might awake--prayed."

Graham moved to speak and did not.

She hesitated, and a faint colour crept back to her cheek. "Do you know
that you have been to myriads--King Arthur, Barbarossa--the King who
would come in his own good time and put the world right for them?"

"I suppose the imagination of the people--"

"Have you not heard our proverb, 'When the Sleeper wakes?' While you lay
insensible and motionless there--thousands came. Thousands. Every first
of the month you lay in state with a white robe upon you and the people
filed by you. When I was a little girl I saw you like that, with your
face white and calm."

She turned her face from him and looked steadfastly at the painted wall
before her. Her voice fell. "When I was a little girl I used to look
at your face....it seemed to me fixed and waiting, like the patience of
God."

"That is what we thought of you," she said. "That is how you seemed to
us."

She turned shining eyes to him, her voice was clear and strong. "In the
city, in the earth, a myriad myriad men and women are waiting to see
what you will do, full of strange incredible expectations."

"Yes?"

"Ostrog--no one--can take that responsibility."

Graham looked at her in surprise, at her face lit with emotion. She
seemed at first to have spoken with an effort, and to have fired herself
by speaking.