"Perhaps he is awake," she said quietly. "Go on."
"That's all. I learned a great deal last night."
"You say that a day or two would make no difference, and yet this morning you were up very early. You ordered the camels—"
"I thought only of myself."
"You thought it would be easier to go to-day—though the camels needed rest—"
"I could not hold it in the night that the meeting meant anything to you."
"You were out on the quest and I appeared in the way—" she smiled and added, "a dragon to be overcome."
"I have not imagination enough to make you that—"
"A dragon to test the courage of the quester. A man must never forget his mission—must remember first of all the little ones, the many little ones, who require a sign."
In spite of the tearing-down, it was a pinnacle moment to Romney. She was lovely as he had not seen her before. Her swift and absolute understanding liberated his whole nature upon her. Had she chosen to captivate him, there could not have been conceived a more perfect design. Had she met him level-eyed, weakness for weakness, it would have sounded, temporarily, at least, the knell for his infatuation. Had she clung or pressed him to linger, it would have become a mere episode.