“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.
“Do you think,” she said, “that you who have lived that little life so far away in the past, you who have fallen into and risen out of this miracle of sleep—do you think that the wonder and reverence and hope of half the world has gathered about you only that you may live another little life?... That you may shift the responsibility to any other man?”
“I know how great this kingship of mine is,” he said haltingly. “I know how great it seems. But is it real? It is incredible—dreamlike. Is it real, or is it only a great delusion?”
“It is real,” she said; “if you dare.”
“After all, like all kingship, my kingship is Belief. It is an illusion in the minds of men.”
“If you dare!” she said.