With Ostrog,
the Boss--"
He paused.
She turned upon him and surveyed his face with a curious scrutiny.
"Well?"
He smiled. "To take the responsibility."
"That is what we have begun to fear." For a moment she said no more.
"No," she said slowly. "_You_ will take the responsibility. You will take
the responsibility. The people look to you."
She spoke softly. "Listen! For at least half the years of your sleep--in
every generation--multitudes of people, in every generation greater
multitudes of people, have prayed that you might awake--_prayed_."
Graham moved to speak and did not.
She hesitated, and a faint colour crept back to her cheek. "Do you know
that you have been to myriads--King Arthur, Barbarossa--the King who
would come in his own good time and put the world right for them?"
"I suppose the imagination of the people--"
"Have you not heard our proverb, 'When the Sleeper wakes'? While you lay
insensible and motionless there--thousands came. Thousands. Every first
of the month you lay in state with a white robe upon you and the people
filed by you. When I was a little girl I saw you like that, with your
face white and calm."
She turned her face from him and looked steadfastly at the painted
wall before her. Her voice fell. "When I was a little girl I used to
look at your face.... It seemed to me fixed and waiting, like the
patience of God."
"That is what we thought of you," she said.
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