Beneath a blaze of bunting, the street seemed paved with heads. “Madonna,” she breathed, as an official on a white horse, its mane stained black, began authoritatively backing his steed into the patient faces of the mob, startling an infant in arms below, to a frantic fit of squalls. “Just so shall we stand on the Day of Judgment,” she reflected, blinking at the glare. Street boys vending programmes, ‘Lucky’ horseshoes, Saturnalian emblems--(these for gentlemen only), offering postcards of ‘Geo and Glory,’ etc., wedged their way however where it might have been deemed indeed impossible for anyone to pass. And _he_, she wondered, her eyes following the wheeling pigeons, alarmed by the recurrent salutes of the signal guns, he must be there already: Under the dome! Restive a little beneath the busy scrutiny, his tongue like the point of a blade.... A burst of cheering seemed to announce the Queen. But no, it was only a lady, with a parasol sewn with diamonds, that was exciting the rah-rahs of the crowd. Followed by mingled cries of “Shame!” “Waste!” and sighs of envy, Madame Wetme was enjoying a belated triumph. And now a brief lull, as a brake containing various delegates and “representatives of English Culture,” rolled by at a stately trot--Lady Alexander, E. V. Lucas, Robert Hichens, Clutton Brock, etc.,--the ensemble the very apotheosis of worn-out _cliché_. “There’s someone there wot’s got enough heron plumes on her head!” a young girl in the crowd remarked. And nobody contradicted her. Then troops and outriders, and at last the Queen. She was looking charming in a Corinthian chlamyde, in a carriage lined in deep delphinium blue, behind six restive blue roan horses. Finally, the bride and her father, bowing this way and that.... Cheers. “Huzzas”-- A hushed suspense. Below the wall the voice of a beggar arose, persistent, haunting: “For the Love of God.... In the Name of Pity ... of Pity.” “Of Pity,” she echoed, addressing a frail, wind-sown harebell, blue as the sky: And leaning upon the shattered glass ends, that crowned the wall, she fell to considering the future--Obedience, Solitude--death. The troubling _valse_ theme from _Dante in Paris_ interrupted her meditations. How often had they valsed it together, he and she ... sometimes as a two-step...! What souvenirs.... Yousef, Yousef.... Above the Cathedral, the crumbling clouds, had eclipsed the sun. In the intense meridian glare the thronged street seemed even as though half-hypnotised; occasionally only the angle of a parasol would change, or some bored soldier’s legs would give a little. When brusquely, from the belfry, burst a triumphant clash of bells. Laura caught her breath. Already? A shaking of countless handkerchiefs in wild ovation: From roof-tops, and balconies, the air was thick with falling flowers--the bridal pair! But only for the bridegroom had she eyes.