Sixth!  He had come in sixth!  Sky and grass and trees and white mass of ladies (among whom was the goddess) and unconsiderable men and boys became a shimmering blur.  He seemed to stagger away, stagger miles away, until, finding himself quite alone, he threw himself down under a beech tree, and, after a few moments’ vivid realization of what had happened, sobbed out the agony of his little soul’s despair.  Sixth!  He had come in sixth!  He had failed miserably in his championship.  How she must despise him—­she who had sent him forth to victory!  And yet how ’had it been possible?  How had it been possible that other boys could beat him?  He was he.  An indomitable personage.  Some hideous injustice guided human affairs.  Why shouldn’t he have won?  He could not tell.  But he had not won.  She had sent him forth to win.  He had lost.  He had come in a sickening sixth.  The disgrace devastated him.

Maisie Shepherd, interested in her child champion, sought him out and easily found him under the beech tree.  “Why, what is the matter?”

As he did not answer, she knelt by his side and put her hand on his lean shoulder.  “Tell me what has happened.”

Again the celestial fragrance overspread his senses.  He checked his sobs and wiped his eyes with the back of his grubby hand.  “Aw didn’t win,” he moaned.

“Poor little chap,” she said comfortingly.  “Did you want to win so very much?”

He got up and stared at her.  “Yo’ told me to win.”

“So you ran for me?”

“Ay!”

She rose to her feet and looked down upon him, somewhat overwhelmed by her responsibility.  So in ancient days might a fair maiden have regarded her knight who underwent entirely unnecessary batterings for her sake.  “Then for me you’ve won,” she said.  “I wish I could give you a prize.”

But what in the nature of a prize for a gutter imp of eleven does a pocketless young woman attired for the serious business of a school treat carry upon her person?  She laughed in pretty embarrassment.  “If I gave you something quite useless, what would you do with it?”

“I ’u’d hide it safe, so ’ut nobody should see it,” said Paul, thinking of his precious cards.

“Wouldn’t you show it to anybody?”

“By Gum!—­” he checked himself suddenly.  Such, he had learned, was not Sunday-school language.  “I wouldno’ show it to a dog,” said he.

Maisie Shepherd, aware of romantic foolishness, slipped a cornelian heart from a thin gold chain round her neck.  “It’s all I can give you for a prize, if you will have it.”

If he would have it?  The Koh-i-Noor’ in his clutch (and a knowledge of its value) could not have given him more thrilling rapture.  He was speechless with amazement; Maisie, thrilled too, realized that a word spoken would have rung false.  The boy gloated over his treasure; but she did not know—­how could she?—­what it meant to him.  To Paul the bauble was a bit of the warm wonder that was she.