Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/186

 and by a brass band on a great gold and red wagon; and led by great heavy-stepping elephants, splay-footed camels, and Indians in war bonnets, buckskin clothes and beaded moccasins.

Other traffic had stopped. The pavements were crowded, and there was desultory cheering up and down the street. She was still unsuspicious. The parade moved on, brilliant and exotic; Arabs, Indians, a colored minstrel troupe, a group of Cossacks, in astrakhan hats and queer long blouses, tightly belted at the waist. One of the Cossacks, small and young, seemed to pick her out of the crowd and saluted her with his whip.

But she hardly saw him; her eyes were strained back to where the cowboys, the aristocrats of the performance, were riding along, relaxed in their saddles. On they came, the sun shining on their bright shirts and colored neckerchiefs, on their spurs and chaps and coiled ropes. Under the broad high-crowned hats their faces were thin, young, and brown. They swayed to the motion of their horses, the reins in one gloved hand, the other resting negligently on hip or thigh. And as they passed, like the little Cossack they picked out pretty girls and smiled at them.

One, in the lead, was on a tall bay horse. Every now and again he tightened his rein and lightly spurred the animal, and it reared above the crowd. The man on its back sat at his ease, smiling half scornfully at the crowd. He seemed to say: "Tie that, you bunch of pikers!"

Suddenly she heard herself calling:

"Tom! Tom McNair!"

He heard her. She knew that. She could see his eyes searching the crowd. But she could not call again. Too many eyes were on her, interested and curious. And after that first start of his he did not look around. Instead, with a half-mocking smile on his face, he dug his spurs into his horse, and the animal reared again.

It was like a gesture of defiance.

She went back into the shop and asked for a drink of water, and when they had brought it to her they stood around her. They seemed to think she looked ill. Maybe she was.