I had unconsciously ridden a bit ahead of Carlotta, thinking my own thoughts, and sighing as a man often does sigh, for the vague unattainable which is happiness.  Suddenly I missed her by my side, and turning round saw a sight that made my heart beat with its sheer beauty.  It was only Carlotta on her barbarically betrapped and besaddled mule.  But it was Carlotta glorified in colour.  She held above her head a cotton parasol, which she had bought to her delight and my disgust in Mogador; an impossible thing, all deep cherry reds and yellows; a hateful thing made for a pantomime—­or for this African afternoon.  Outspread and luminous in the white sunlight its cherry reds and yellows floated like translucences of wine above Carlotta’s bronze hair crowned by a white sun hat, her warm flesh-tints, and the dazzling white of her surah silk blouse; the whole picture cut out vivid against the indigo of the sky.  It was a radiant vision.  I stared openmouthed, smitten with the pang that sudden and transient loveliness can sometimes deal, as Carlotta approached, her figure swaying with the jog of her barbaric beast.  Her eyes were fixed on mine.  She halted, and for a moment we looked at one another; and in those wonderful eyes I saw for the first time a beautiful sadness, a spiritual appeal.  The moment passed.  We started again, side by side, neither speaking.  I did not look at her, conscious of a vague trouble.  Things that I had thought dead stirred in my heart.

Presently like a dawn of infinite delicacy rose the city before us.  Its fairy minarets and towers gleamed first white in an atmosphere of pale amethyst toning through shades of green to the blue of the zenith.  And the lazy sea lay at the city’s foot a pavement of lapis lazuli.  But all was faint, unreal.  Far, far away a group of palms caught opalescent reflections.  A slight breeze had sprung up, raising minute particles of sand which caused the elfland on the horizon to quiver like a mirage.

“It is a dream-city,” said I, in admiration.

Carlotta did not reply.  I thought she had not heard.  We jogged on a little in silence.  At last she drew very close to me.

“Shall we ever get there?” she asked, pointing ahead with the hand that held the reins.

“To Mogador?  Yes, I hope so,” I answered with a laugh.  I thought she was tired.

“No, not Mogador.  The dream-city—­where every one wants to get.”

“You have travelled far, my dear,” said I, “to hanker now after dream-cities and the unattainable.  I knew a little girl once who would have asked:  ’What is a dream-city?”

“She doesn’t ask now because she knows,” replied Carlotta.  “No.  We shall never get there.  It looks as if we were riding straight into it—­but when we get close, it will just be Mogador.”

“Aren’t you happy, Carlotta?” I asked.

“Are you, Seer Marcous?”

“I?  I am a philosopher, my child, and a happy philosopher would be a lusus naturae, a freak, a subject for a Barnum & Bailey Show.  If they caught him they would put him between the hairy man and the living skeleton.”