"You can join in that, anyhow," she said to Paul. "Go along and let
me see you win."

Paul scudded off, his heart aflame, his hand, as he ran, tucking in
the shirt whose evasion from the breeches was beyond the control of
the single brace. Besides, crawling on your stomach is dislocating
even to the most neatly secured attire. But his action was
mechanical. His thoughts were with his goddess. In his inarticulate
mind he knew himself to be her champion. He sped under her
consecration. He knew he could run. He could run like a young deer.
Though despised, could he not outrun any of the youth in Budge
Street? He took his place in the line of competing children. Far
away in the grassy distance were two men holding a stretched string.
On one side of him was a tubby boy with a freckled face and an
amorphous nose on which the perspiration beaded; on the other a
lank, consumptive creature, in Eton collar and red tie and a sprig
of sweet William in his buttonhole, a very superior person. Neither
of them desired his propinquity. They tried to hustle him from the
line. But Paul, born Ishmael, had his hand against them. The fat
boy, smitten beneath the belt, doubled up in pain and the
consumptive person rubbed agonized shins. A curate, walking down
repressing bulges and levelling up concavities, ordained order. The
line stood tense. Away beyond, toward the goal, appeared a white
mass, which Paul knew to be the ladies in their summer dresses; and
among them, though he could not distinguish her, was she in whose
eyes he was to win glory. The prize did not matter. It was for her
that he was running. In his childish mind he felt passionately
identified with her. He was her champion.