"Garn, surely it ain't time to stop yet," wailed Emmie.
He had gathered enough courage to ask her her name.
"Have another?" pleaded Gordon.
"No; let us try the lively thing over there. These boats do make me feel so funny-like."
The merry-go-round was just stopping. There was a rush for the horses. Gordon leapt on one, and leaning down caught Emmie up and sat her in front of him; she lay back in his arms in a languor of satisfied excitement. Her hair blew across his face, stifling him; on every side couples were hugging and squeezing. The sensuous whirl of the machine was acting as a narcotic, numbing thought. He caught her flushed, tired face in his hands and kissed her wildly, beside himself with the excitement of the moment.
"You don't mind, do you?" he murmured in a hoarse whisper.
"Don't be so silly; I have been waiting for that. Now we can get comfy-like."
Her arms were round his neck, her flushed face was hot on his, her hair hung over his shoulders. The strains of You Made Me Love You came inarticulate with passion out of the shrieking organ. Her elbow nudged him. Her lips were as fire beneath his. The machine slowed down and stopped. Gordon paid for five extra rounds. Dazed with new and hitherto unrealised sensations, Gordon forgot everything but the strange warm thing nestling in his arms; and he abandoned himself to the passion of the moment.
At last their time was up. Closely, her hair on his shoulder, they moved to the dancing circle, and plunged into the throng of the shouting, jostling dancers. Of the next two hours Gordon could remember nothing. He had vague recollections of streaming hair, of warm hands, and of fierce, wild kisses. Lights flickered, shot skywards, and went out. Forms loomed before him, a strange weariness came over him, he remembered flinging himself beside her in the grass and burying his face in her hair. She seemed to speak as from a very long way off. Once more the dance caught them. Then Auld Lang Syne struck up. Hands were clasped, a circle swayed riotously. There were promises to meet next night, promises that neither meant to keep. Rudd was waiting impatiently at the café. Once more the wall by the Abbey rose spectral, once more the cloisters echoed vaguely. The boot-hole window creaked.
As the dawn broke tempestuously in the sky Gordon fell across his bed, his brain tired with a thousand memories, all fugitive, all vague, all exquisitely unsubstantial.