THE MAN IN SADDLE
"There will not be another like him," she said. "These wonderful things don't happen twice."
"No," he answered. This was something he could understand. It seemed to him an oracle had spoken. He took her to the door of her room, kissed her on the forehead and left her. The touch of her stirred him with tenderness, but when he turned his back it was forgotten. He was not thinking of her.
The sun came like an enemy and surprised him sitting on the edge of his bed, his head sunk in his hands. He heard the barking of a dog, the flight of birds in the trees, the sound of footsteps, the opening of doors. The flare of yellow had wakened the world into action. His vision of last night with its incredibility and tremendous reality, its silver and black, was melting, and with it all the footless hopes and fancies that had followed him home through the gray air. The power for vision of future or past was gone, and he found himself staring with concentration at a round floating spot of light upon the wall, while his brain repeated over and over: "Why need she know of it? Why need she know? Why need she know?"
He stared at the significance of this, too surprised to reflect whence those words had sprung, born in his own mind or planted there by some other's thought. They were words any man might speak of
307
