"That is what they say," he answered. "My people say that I am the tenth Avatar. But I am not. I am only a man--scarcely so much. A few months ago I was no more than a beggar in the Bazaar, an idler and a dreamer. If I have thrown aside my false dreams and come out as an untried worker into the light of truth, it is because I have been led by God--through you." Every trace of color fled from her face, and the clear eyes which met his from beneath the broad helmet distended as though at some sudden shock. In the course of their earnest but impersonal conversation she had almost forgotten what was to come. This was the end of the ride, this was the to-morrow, the inevitable to-morrow of those who procrastinate with the inevitable. "I--I have done nothing," she said, striving to hush down the rising tide of suffocating emotion. "Yes, it is nothing. I know it is nothing, but it may still become something," he answered. "Or is it not already something? Is it not something that you have led me to the feet of the Great Teacher? Is it not something that I am awake and standing on the threshold of a new Earth and Heaven, as yet blinded by the light, but with every day gaining courage and strength to go forward? Do not say that this is nothing--you to whom I owe all that I am and ever shall be!" She threw back her fair head. Now was the time to call to her aid all her cynicism, all the shallow, heartless skepticism which had hitherto ruled her character. Now was the time to laugh and to throw into this man's face what she had been glad and satisfied to throw into the faces of a dozen other men--the biting acid of her mockery. But she could not laugh--she could not laugh at this man. Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth, her throat seemed thick with a suffocating dust, so that she could make no sound. "God forgive me if I have boasted of my own progress," he went on earnestly. "I know too well how much of the long road I have still to travel. It could not be otherwise. I can not reach in a few months what men have attained who have always lived in the light of truth. But I have hope. I carry in my heart your image and the ideal you have set me--the ideal of your race." Then speech was given her.