"I feel as if I had been waked up. Once I had my riding dream. Now I have a million dreams. Did I tell you my riding dream? Some nights—chiefly when there's a moon—I wake and lie there and fancy I am on a horse. There's the smell of the horse and the leather, the creak of the saddle, and we are riding like the devil or the wind, always over plains that stretch out into more miles, however far I ride. I am bent over the saddle, peering forward. That's what I had when my blood moved too fast for me. Now I shall dream of fight. Playmate, what is it?"
"It isn't anything. I didn't speak."
"Yes, but there was that quick little breath. I keep hurting you somehow. Do you suppose I want any of it except for you? I want to ride to you. I want to fight because I could fight for you."
"Ah," she said sadly, "you think so now for a minute. But you had forgotten me."
"Yes, I had," he owned. "That's being a man, too. We have to forget you or we couldn't ride and we couldn't fight. But it's all for you."
There was the thunder again.
"I must go back," she said.
"Yes, it's going to rain. You must go. One minute. It won't come yet. Does he know you have told Electra?"
"My father? Yes."
"What did he say?"