"But I can't," he said in perplexity. "We have taken two of the settees—four seats. One of the settees would be inadequately weighted with only one person—its balance would not be kept—it might not be safe. I must wait for the gentleman whom I expect every moment."
In vain the ticket-seller protested that the equilibrium of the settees did not depend upon the weight or number of the occupants. But the wind had now grown so chill that he looked up with anxiety and deprecation at the stationary wights high in the wheel, who were threatening to make complaints to the municipal authorities for their detention thus out of reason and against their will, and demanding an immediate descent and release. Then he said, for he had a gift for expedients and was an excellent man of business:
"We can't wait no longer, sir. If you think the wheel ain't safe with only one passenger on the settee jes' let this gent take a seat alongside o' one of the ladies, and that will sure make the balance all right," and he summoned forward with a nod the wag who had chanted the inquiry concerning "the good old Francis."
He was a slightly built, common young fellow, arrayed in a cheap plaid suit, a steel watch chain, a straw hat, and he was chewing a straw as if it were his daily provender. He had a flat face, sandy hair, a good-natured small grey eye and no eyelashes to speak of. He stepped forward with nonchalant alacrity. He had evidently been selected as the most responsible looking person available, and the only reason that Jardine did not faint upon the spot was that his attention was stimulated by the sudden offer of a substitute even more distasteful to his prejudices.
"Do you think that with this wind more avoirdupois is necessary?" Lloyd's voice broke upon the air. He had come up during the discussion and was a witness of the speechless horror of Jardine, who might have involved himself in some unpleasant dilemma with the crowd had he declined, and who could not of course accept the expedient. "Well—it is up to the show folks to make these things satisfactory to the public as well as safe, and if the gentleman will consider me a sufficient makeweight I'll undertake to balance this settee."
He forthwith cut the Gordian knot and broke the deadlock by handing Lucia to the waiting settee with a grace as definite and a manner as gravely deferential as if the role of squire of dames were in continual rehearsal in his repertoire. He seated himself beside her before Jardine could protest, and as they swung off together into the air the next settee came within reach and there was no course left to Jardine but to assist Ruth to her place, and follow in the regular rotation of the wheel.
Jardine had never esteemed himself an elderly lover; in the conventional walks of life in the city of their respective homes there had seemed no disparity whatever in their ages. Now the variance in taste, in temperament, in the outlook at life, in the pursuit of excitement, in sheer endurance, was definitely asserted. The sensation, as the settees rose elastically with the revolution of the wheel, was nauseating to his well-conducted stomach. Then, as they paused and swung, pendulum-like, to and fro, while the lower seat was filled and other passengers were liberated, the posture, the situation was revolting to his priggish sense of dignity. He fairly dreaded the upper dizzy reaches of the circumference, and naught but the coercion of the circumstances could have constrained him to the ordeal. He maintained silence, however, remembering the rural fling "old man" and desiring to betray no sentiment of discomfort to the delighted Ruth, who sat beside him gurgling with gleeful laughter, and uttering little disconnected exclamations of half-feigned fear and a real sense of jeopardy.
When, rather than incur Lucia's anger, Jardine had lent himself to the absurd pleasuring, on which the two girls seemed bent, he had no conception of such a turn of circumstances as should relegate her to the care of another, a stranger, and of all people in the world, the manager of an itinerant show. He scarcely knew how he should face Mrs. Laniston after this signal demonstration of his incapacity to discharge so simple a duty as devolved upon him in the escort of the two young ladies—she could never be made to comprehend the pressure of the situation. He sought to comfort himself by the realisation that after all the wheel was but a public conveyance, and for a lady to sit beside a strange man in this vehicle was not a matter of more pronounced familiarity than in a street car or a railway train, an episode of daily occurrence. In this point of view the rural wag would have been more acceptable to his predilections than this extraordinarily handsome man, with the manners of a gentleman and the calling of a strolling faker. Lucia would never seem aware of the existence of the one, whereas the other had after a fashion been brought to her notice; they had asked of him the favour of photographing the dancing-girl, though as an excuse indeed for having been detected in surreptitiously photographing the manager. The two had on that occasion exchanged sundry formal observations, and it would be but natural that some conversation would ensue upon being brought thus accidentally into this renewal of association.
The wind blowing so freshly into their faces almost took away their breath, and now and again, hearing naught from the other couple, Jardine hastily glanced up at them, thinking that it was the gusts that annulled the sound of the exclamations, silvery and joyous, with which Lucia in this novel and coveted amusement must be regaling her incongruous companion as they rose together in their swing ever higher and higher toward the stars. But the electric bulbs showed her face very quiet and grave; her dress gleamed like "white samite, mystic, wonderful," against the purple dusk; she was silent and to his great gratification the manager sat beside her as uncommunicative as if he had been a part of the machine, essential to its utility, like one of the dummy horses of the merry-go-round. A very well-conducted young man, Jardine thought, with a fervent thanksgiving that matters were no worse. He had feared that the incongruity of a simulated flirtation with so inappropriate a subject, might attract her eager quest of amusement and her mirthful disposition to horrify and tease her aunt. He formulated an apology in his inner consciousness. He said to himself that he ought to have known her well enough to realise that her innate sense of propriety would conserve all the essential decorums, even in these circumstances so conducive to unconventionality.
But it was not a conventional observation that Lucia saw fit to address to the manager, as he still sat silent, and it surprised him beyond measure.