To Johnnie it seemed that he did not know the shadow from the substance. It all passed before him in a series of coloured pictures, unreal and far away. Had he been down there among the knights and lords, he felt that he would but have fought with shadows. It was as though a weird seizure had taken hold on him, a waking dream enmeshed him in its drowsy impalpable net, so that on a sudden, in the midst of men and day, while he walked and talked and stood as ever before, he yet seemed to move among a world of ghosts, to feel himself the shadow of a dream. Once when Sir Charles Paston Cooper, a very clever rider at the swinging ring, and also doughty in full shock of combat, had borne down his adversary, the Queen clapped her hands.
"Habet!" she cried, like any Roman empress, excited and glad, because young Sir Charles was a very strong adherent of the Crown, and known to be bitterly opposed to the pretensions of the Lady Elizabeth. "Habet!" the Queen cried again, with a shriek of delight.
She looked at her husband, whose head was a little bent, whose sallow face was lost in thought. She did not venture to disturb his reverie, but glanced behind him and above his chair to where John Commendone was standing.
"C'est bien fait, n'est-ce pas, Monsieur?" she said in French.
The young man's face, also, was frozen into immobility. It did not waken to the Queen's joyous exclamation. The eyes were turned inwards, he was hearing nothing of it all.
Her Grace's face flushed a little. She said no more, but wondered exceedingly.
The stately display-at-arms went on. The sun declined towards his western bower, and blue shadows crept slowly over the sand.
A little chill wind arose suddenly, and as it did so, Commendone awoke.
Everything flashed back to him. In the instant that it did so, and the dreaming of his mind was blown away, the curtain before his subconscious intelligence rolled up and showed him the real world. The first thing he saw was the head of King Philip just below him. The tall conical felt hat moved suddenly, leaning downwards towards a corner of the arena just below the Royal box.
Johnnie saw the King's profile, the lean, sallow jowl, the corner of the curved, tired, and haughty lip—the small eye suddenly lit up.