He secured a seat in the third row, avoiding almost by instinct any more conspicuous position.  He was early, and while he waited, the thought of young Eric Baron came to him—­the boy’s eager-face, the adoration of his eyes.  He remembered how on that far-off night he had realized the hopelessness of combating his love, how he had shrugged his shoulders and relinquished the struggle.  And the battle had been his even then—­a bitter victory more disastrous than defeat.

He put the memory from him and thought of Rosemary—­the child with the morning light in her eyes, the innocence of the morning in her soul.  How tenderly she had spoken of Rosa Mundi!  How sweetly she had pleaded her cause!  With what amazing intuition had she understood!  Something that was greater than pity welled up within him.  Rosa Mundi’s guardian angel had somehow reached his heart.

People were pouring into the place.  He saw that it was going to be packed.  And outside, lining the whole length of the Pier, they were waiting for her too, waiting to strew her path with, roses.

Ah! she was coming!  Above the wash of the sea there rose a roar of voices.  They were giving her the homage of a queen.  He listened to the frantic cheering, and again it was Rosa Mundi, splendid and brilliant, who filled his thoughts as she filled the thoughts of all just then.

The cheering died down, and there came a great press of people into the back of the building.  The lights were lowered, but he heard the movement, the buzz of a delighted crowd.

Suddenly the orchestra burst into loud music.  They were playing “Queen of the Earth,” he remembered later.  The curtain went up.  And in a blaze of light he saw Rosa Mundi.

Something within him sprang into quivering life.  Something which till that moment he had never known awoke and gripped him with a force gigantic.  She was robed in shimmering, transparent gold—­a queen-woman, slight indeed, dainty, fairy-like—­yet magnificent.  Over her head, caught in a jewelled fillet, there hung a filmy veil of gold, half revealing, half concealing, the smiling face behind.  Trailing wisps of golden gossamer hung from her beautiful arms.  Her feet were bound with golden sandals.  And on her breast were roses—­golden roses.

She was exquisite as a dream.  He gazed and gazed upon her as one entranced.  The tumult of acclamation that greeted her swept by him unheeded.  He was conscious only of a passionate desire to fling back the golden veil that covered her and see the laughing face behind.  Its elusiveness mocked him.  She was like a sunbeam standing there, a flitting, quivering shaft of light, too spiritual to be grasped fully, almost too dazzling for the eye to follow.

The applause died down to a dead silence.  Her audience watched her with bated breath.  Her dance was a thing indescribable.  Courteney could think of nothing but the flashing of morning sunlight upon running water to the silver strains of a flute that was surely piped by Pan.  He could not follow the sparkling wonder of her.  He felt dazed and strangely exhilarated, almost on fire with this new, fierce attraction.  It was as if the very soul were being drawn out of his body.  She called to him, she lured him, she bewitched him.