"Well, that was quite interesting!" said Delaine as they emerged.
Elizabeth, however, would certainly have detected the perfunctoriness of the tone, and the hypocrisy of the speech, had she had any thoughts to spare.
But her face showed her absorbed.
"Isn't it amazing!" Her tone was quiet, her eyes on the ground.
"Yet, after all, the world has seen a good many emigrations in its day!" remarked Delaine, not without irritation.
She lifted her eyes.
"Ah--but nothing like this! One hears of how the young nations came down and peopled the Roman Empire. But that lasted so long. One person--with one life--could only see a bit of it. And here one sees it all--all, at once!--as a great march--the march of a new people to its home. Fifty years ago, wolves and bears, and buffaloes--twelve years ago even, the great movement had not begun--and now, every week, a new town!--the new nation spreading, spreading over the open land, irresistibly, silently; no one setting bounds to it, no one knowing what will come of it!"
She checked herself. Her voice had been subdued, but there was a tremor in it. Delaine caught her up, rather helplessly.
"Ah! isn't that the point? What will come of it? Numbers and size aren't everything. Where is it all tending?"
She looked up at him, still exalted, still flushed, and said softly, as though she could not help it, "'On to the bound of the waste--on to the City of God!'"