Meanwhile his guests searched for the Athena. There might be something--a post, perhaps--that signified the goddess of wisdom to the plastic mind of poor Mr. Levinsky. But they could find nothing. "She's only a dream like all the other things," said Priscilla. "Poor man! I can't see how he can reconcile things in his own mind!" "He doesn't," explained Virginia. "That's the lovely part of it! He's the happiest Emperor I've ever known of in all my life!" CHAPTER XIII ON THE MESA "Pedro," said Virginia, "do you realize for one little minute what's happened?" Pedro looked back and whinnied. He realized at least that something was agitating his mistress. But half an hour since she had run out of the house to where he was feeding beneath the cottonwoods, and hurried him to the corral where she had saddled and bridled him herself. She had been crying then. Quick little sobs were shaking her shoulders. Then she had sprung upon his back and ridden like mad across the prairie to Elk Creek Valley. Had MacDuff been along, he would not have minded; but it was too warm at mid-day to gallop all alone. Once during that wild ride she had laughed, and once she had leaned forward and put her arms around his neck. It was all a very strange proceeding. Now she had mercifully halted him on the brow of the mesa, and was allowing him to rest and feed while she sat in silence and looked across the sagebrush stretches to the mountains. A long silence. The air throbbed with a hidden insect chorus. Little waves of heat shimmered above the mesa. Jean MacDonald's three cows, searching for better feeding-grounds, passed by and gazed with grave, inquisitive eyes at Pedro and Virginia. Pedro fed on where he was. At last the girl upon his back spoke again. "Pedro," she began, and again Pedro raised his head, "Pedro, I've decided that Life isn't such a strange thing after all! I've always thought it was until to-day, but I guess it isn't. I guess it just means loving people--and things! If you love the wrong kind of people and the things that don't count, why, then--why, then Life's a sad, gray thing. But if you love the right kind of people, the kind who've learned that a primrose isn't just a primrose, and things like the mountain and the mesa and _you_, Pedro--why, then, Life's a golden thing like to-day. And it's the loving that makes all the difference. I discovered that this morning when Aunt Nan told me about Malcolm. When I was in Vermont I thought that Grandmother and Aunt Nan were about the happiest people I'd seen; but this morning, when I saw the light in Aunt Nan's eyes, I understood. I guess it's a home that makes all the difference, Pedro--a home you and _somebody else_ make together!" Pedro fed on, glad to be talked to, confident that his mistress' world had righted itself again. A passing cloud obscured the sun for a brief moment.