The Fretta rushed straight towards the sunset, like some little water-creature magnetised by light. On either side of the wheel, opposite each other, Sophy and Amaldi sat gazing at the gorgeous, cloud-suffused sky. They had both thrown aside their hats. His face had a new, boyish look with his hair blown back by the wind. It was still so warm in the mellow glow from the sunset, that he had also taken off his coat. Sophy liked his slight figure freed of the dark-blue coat. It, too, looked boyish somehow. This pleased her. Sometimes his grave stillness almost made her nervous. There seemed to be so much at work under the smooth surface. She thought that he was rather like a still, dark, mountain pool. One saw reflections so clearly—but never what was really in the depths of the pool.
But now some quickening change had come over him and his face looked eager, joyous—the face of one who could be a delightful companion. His eyes seemed to have dismissed more serious thoughts.
The sun, with disk hidden behind a mass of purple cloud, sent forth vast spokes of light on every side; and this immense, fiery wheel, whose axle was the hidden sun, whose tyre the extreme round of pale blue air, made Sophy cry out:
"There 'tarry the wheels of his chariot'! Apollo's revealing himself to me because I'm a good Pagan!"
"Are you a 'good Pagan'?" said Amaldi, smiling. "Then you shouldn't have dealings with the priesthood that have stolen his rays to set round the vessel sacred to another god."
She shook her head at him, smiling, too.
"No, no. I won't let you quarrel with me to-day. It has all been too beautiful."
"I couldn't quarrel with you," he said, "even if you let me—even if you insisted on keeping a pet priest. Or, yes—then I might be tempted to 'quarrel'—though I'd have no right to."
"Friendship gives rights. We agreed to be friends long ago—in England," answered Sophy happily.
Then she looked again at the golden wheel that filled the west.