Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/360



HE rosy incandescence of the Pink Cheek had grown fainter and duller, until now, with sun and short afterglow both gone, the great spur was no more than a cloud of gray ashes lying upon the darkened plain. In the Desert, nearer, were the low brown tents of some Nomads whose supper fires glowed in garnet points against the dun-coloured sand. So were there hot little points burning in the gloomy soul of the lonely young man upon the tower. His dream was "all over," he said to himself—for it is the habit of young gentlemen of his age to speak to themselves of their dreams—but even as he came to this dream's end he was not quite sure what it was that he had dreamed.

What had he asked of her? This he asked of himself, and elicited no immediate reply. He had spoken to her of marriage, regretting that her convictions did not permit her to entertain the idea; but when she had twice answered—apparently with mere gayety, to be sure—that she did not boast of her