"I am looking for 'Terah.' Mother said he was an ideal, merely the creature of my brain, and since then I have lost him," she moaned. "Ask her to take me to the great city that I may seek him, for I think he has gone there to prove that he is true."
And so the "Windflower" was uprooted from among her kith and kin. She journeyed to the distant town, past the river and over the hills.
And all was changed. She was thrust into the world of fashion. Dressed in costly silks with long flowing trains, her hair was not allowed to hang loosely over her shoulders any more. She was "out," so it was dressed high on her head by a French coiffeur. She was forbidden to walk unattended in the great city. Even in the parks she was always accompanied by a chaperon. It was not correct to be seen alone, and comfort and freedom had to be sacrificed.
II.
Society made much of the ethereal-looking girl. Society took to her title of the "Windflower"; it was so romantic, so "old world." She went for rides in the Row, drove in the Park, visited the opera and theatres, was present at evening receptions, and at ladies' "tea and scandal" parties—weak tea and strong scandal. Here she learned to fear her own sex.
She was presented at Court in a low dress on a foggy afternoon; she went everywhere in a sort of dream seeking her ideal, but she found no trace of "Terah," the breather of good; and as time passed she grew sick at heart, seeing on all hands the lust of self. Men battled for their idol everywhere, women bartered away their souls to crown self with a diadem of gold.
Presently she was permitted to go about unattended, a freedom that inspired her with new hopes. She went down to the busy part of the city and stood in the surging crowd that battled for life. The "Windflower" was alone in a world of anxious men whose all-consuming passion was self. Time was precious. All was hurry. Everybody had business on hand; even at luncheon they seemed to be racing. Not a minute was to be lost; hesitate but for an
instant, and they were pushed aside, the great race of self against self, pursuing its course without them. A few attained the goal, but many were stricken down by the way. Those who reached it bowed their heads to the ground and worshipped at the glittering shrine where Gold and Self were throned kings of the human heart.
Her quest seemed to be failing entirely. Among the poor, who learned to love her, she now and then found a trace of her lost "Terah," but it was only a straggling ray of light in a nightmare of darkness and sin.