As they climbed the slope on the other side of the river, they looked back at the tents with their wilted streamers, at the swarming bug-like teams and the ant-like human beings, and it seemed to Rose as if she should weep, so poignant was her sense of personal loss.
She knew something sweet and splendid and mystical was passing out of her life after a few hours' stay there. Her feeling of loss was none the less real because it was indefinable to her.
The others chattered about each part of the show, and shouted admiration about this and that feat, but Rose was silent. When they stopped at sunset beside a spring to eat their lunch she merely said:
"I don't feel hungry."
The others fell silent after a time, and they rode dreamily forward, with the roll of wheels making them sleepy and the trample of the horses' feet telling them how rapidly they were leaving their great day's pleasure behind them.
When Rose huddled into her little attic bed, her eyes were wide open, and her brain active as at noonday. There was no sleep for her then. Lying there in the darkness she lived it all over again; the flutter of flags, the wild voices, the blare of music, the chariots, the wild beasts, the knights and ladies, the surging crowds; but the crowning glory, the pictures which lingered longest in her mind were the splendid and beautiful men, whose naked majesty appealed to her pure wholesome awakening womanhood, with the power of beauty and strength combined, with sex and art both included.
These glorious, glittering graceful beings with their marvelous strength and bravery filled her with a deep sad hunger, which she could not understand. They came out of the unknown, led by her chosen one, like knights in Ivanhoe.
She fell asleep thinking of the one in blue and silver, and in her sleep she grew braver and went closer to him, and he turned and spoke to her, and his voice was like waters running, and his eyes shone some way into her eyes like a light.