These,
rising to the surface, swept over him with the queer joy of
intoxicating wonder that only children know. Some great Secret he had
to tell himself, only he had kept it so long and so well that he could
not find it quite. He felt the thrill, yet had forgotten what it was.
Something was going to happen. A new footfall was coming across the
world towards him. He could almost hear its delicate, swift tread.
Life was about to offer him this delicious, thrilling secret--very
soon. Looking up he saw the Pleiades, and the single footfall became
many. He remembered that former curious obsession of the Pleiades...
and as Thought and Yearning went roaming into space, they met
Anticipation, who took them by the hand. It seemed, then, that
children came flocking down upon him from the sky, led by a little
figure with starry eyes of clearest amber, a pair of tiny twinkling
feet, and a voice quite absurdly soft and tender.
'Your time is coming,' he heard behind the rustling of the oak leaves
overhead, 'for the children are calling to you--children of your own.
And this is the bravest Scheme in all the world. There is no bigger.
How can there be? For all the world is a child that goes past your
windows crying for its lost Fairyland...!'
It was after midnight when at length he slipped through the Robin Hood
Gate, passed up Priory Lane, and walked rapidly by the shuttered
houses of Roehampton.
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