The moment was like that in which one watches a poised orchestra, in which one waits, tense and expectant, for the fall of the conductor’s bâton and for the first, sweeping note.
It seemed to break upon the stillness, sound made visible, when the herald rocket soared up from the dark earth, up to the sky of stars.
Bizarre, exquisite, glorious, it caught one’s breath with the swiftness, the strength, the shining, of its long, exultant flight; its languor of attainment; its curve and droop; the soft shock of its blossoming into an unearthly metamorphosis of splendor far and high on the zenith.
The note was struck and after it the symphony followed.
Like a ravished Ganymede, the sense of sight soared amazed among dazzling ecstasies of light and movement.
Thin ribbons of fire streaked the sky; radiant sheaves showered drops of multitudinous gold; fierce constellations of color whirled themselves to stillness on the night’s solemn permanence; a rain of stars drifted wonderfully, with the softness of falling snow, down gulfs of space. And then again the rockets, strong, suave, swift, and their blossoming lassitude.
Eppie gazed, silent and motionless, her uplifted profile like a child’s in its astonished joy. Once or twice she looked round at Gavan and at Grainger,—always first at Gavan,—smiling, and speechless with delight. Her folded arms had dropped to her sides and the shawl fell straightly from her shoulders. She made one think of some young knight, transfixed before a heavenly vision, a benediction of revealed beauty. The trivial occasion lent itself to splendid analogies. The strange light from above bathed her from head to foot in soft, intermittent, heavenly color.
Suddenly, in darkness, Grainger seized her hand. She had hardly felt the pressure, short, sharp with all the exasperation of his worship, before it was gone.
She did not turn to look at him. More than the unjustifiableness of the action, its unexpectedness, she felt a pain, a perplexity, as for something mocking, incongruous. And as if in instinctive seeking she turned her eyes on Gavan and found that he was looking at her.
Was it, then, her eyes, seeking and perplexed, that compelled him; was it his own enfranchised impulse; was it only a continuation of fairy-land fitness, the child instinct of sharing in a unison of touch a mutual wonder? In the fringes of her shawl his hand sought and found her hand. Another rose of joy had expanded on the sky; and they stood so, hand in hand, looking up.