rning
on a trapeze. It was at the fair near Bannalec, and it was so long ago
that she scarcely remembered anything except that somebody had pulled
her away while she stood enchanted, and the flashing light of
fairyland had been forever shut from her eyes.

At times, when the maids of Paradise were sociable at the well in the
square, she had listened to stories of the splendid circus which came
once to Lorient. And now it was coming again!

We stood in the middle of the high-road looking through the dust haze,
she doubtless dreaming of the splendors to come, I very, very tired.
The curtain of golden dust reddened in the west; the afterglow lit up
the sky once more with brilliant little clouds suspended from
mid-zenith. The moorland wind rose and tossed her elf-locks in her
eyes and whipped her skirt till the rags fluttered above her smooth,
bare knees.

Suddenly, straight out of the flaming gates of the sunset, the miracle
was wrought. Celestial shapes in gold and purple rose up in the gilded
dust, chariots of silver, milk-white horses plumed with fire.

Breathless, she shrank back among the weeds, one hand pressed to her
throbbing throat. But the vision grew as she stared; there was
heavenly music, too, and the clank of metal chains, and the smothered
pounding of hoofs. Then she caught sight of something through the dust
that filled her with a delicious terror, and she cried out. For there,
uptowering in the haze, came trudging a great, gray creature, a
fearsome, swaying thing in crimson trappings, flapping huge ears. It
shuffled past, swinging a dusty trunk; the sparkling horsemen cantered
by, tin armor blazing in the fading glory; the chariots dragged after,
and the closed dens of beasts rolled behind in single file, followed
by the band-wagon, where Heaven-inspired musicians played frantically
and a white-faced clown balanced his hat on a stick and shrieked.

So the circus passed into Paradise; and I turned and followed in the
wake of dust, stale odors, and clamorous discord, sick at heart of
wandering over a world I had not found too kind.

And at my heels stole Jacqueline.

XI

IN CAMP

We went into camp under the landward glacis of the cliffs, in a field
of clover which was to be ploughed under in a few days. We all were
there except Kelly Eyre, who had gone to telegraph the governor of
Lorient for permission to enter the port with the circus. Another
messenger also left camp on private busines