“It is very clear to me,” he went on, trying to fight the shadows, “that something like this must happen before great world-forces come into being.  First, the two happy ones learn that love is giving.  Their love goes on and on into a bigger thing than love for each other, and becomes love for the race.  That’s the greater glory.  Avatars have that.  The children of real lovers have such a chance for that vaster spirit!  Indeed, you can almost always trace a great man’s lineage back to some lustrous point of this kind.”

Beth regarded him deeply for a moment.  She could not adjust him to commonness.  She was suffering.  Bedient saw only the mystic light of that suffering.  He had never loved her as at this moment.

“I always wish I could paint you, as you look when you are thinking about such things!” she said.  “Just as you looked when you spoke about two people who have illumined each other, so that they turn their great anguish of loving upon the race....  Yes, I see it:  prophets might indeed come from that kind of love.”

Beth worked with uncommon energy for many minutes.  All-forgetting—­time, place, tension and the man near.  Her spirit was strangely sustained under his eyes.  The work flew, and left little traces of its processes in her mind—­her concentration was deeper than memory.

* * * * *

“I’d like to ride with you,” he said, rising to leave.

Beth had often spoken of her saddle-horse, which of late had been kept at her mother’s country place.  Bedient rented a very good mount in New York, but Beth remarked that her own had spoiled her for all others, adding that he would say so, too, if he could see Clarendon, the famous black she rode.

“I can’t afford to keep him in the city long at a time,” she explained.  “Oh, it’s not what he costs, but he’s a devourer of daylight....  It breaks up half a day to get to the stables and change and all, and I haven’t tried to ride after dark.  We poor paint creatures are so dependent upon light for our work....  And yet riding adds to good health—­just the right sparkle in my case.”

“And that’s royalty,” Bedient declared.

Beth was thinking.  He had spoken of riding with her before.  He had been singularly appealing this day.  Trouble had filled his eyes at the first sight of her, and she had felt his struggle with it....  Her mother had asked to see him, but there wasn’t a good mate for Clarendon in or about Dunstan, where her home was....  She was so worn, mind and nerve and spirit, that the thought of a long ride lured strongly.  She knew he would be different.  Perhaps he might show, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he was not identified with commonness....  He might bring the talk to the point of—­Beth thrilled at this.  She was far from ready, and yet with him before her, Wordling and the sea were remote and soundless.

“Could you get the good mare you ride—­across to Jersey?”