CHAPTER XVI
SON OF THE WIND
ALAS, for the superb moment! His high mood that had set him alone at the head of the world was broken. He was no longer driving men and mountains, and the unconscious forces of the earth like linked horses. He was being driven himself. He was running from something; yet, in fact, he was only hurrying toward the thing he wanted. All this opposition had been an absurdity, a nothing. He had gone through it head down. Would he never get past it? Never shake off the effect of it? He was already far on his way. He tried to look forward, to think of what was awaiting him, but persistently his thought rushed back to the scene behind him. It came to him at first not as a scene but with the memory of the nerves which still felt in their hot current the echoes of the women's voices, strained high in excitement. Those sensations of irritation, bewilderment and confoundment, that had rushed upon him then, instead of diminishing, were growing greater and more intent, stifling reason; and from under their cloud he felt intermittently the
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