“Oh,” said Diana, “what lovely air!”
“I know,” called out Rosamund, with a pleasure so positive that it rang out like a complaint. “It’s just like that horrid, beastly fizzy stuff they gave me that made me feel happy.”
“Oh, it isn’t like anything but itself!” answered Diana, breathing deeply. “Why, it’s all cold, and yet it feels like fire.”
“Balmy is the word we use in Fleet Street,” said Mr. Moon. “Balmy–especially on the crumpet.” And he fanned himself quite unnecessarily with his straw hat. They were all full of little leaps and pulsations of objectless and airy energy. Diana stirred and stretched her long arms rigidly, as if crucified, in a sort of excruciating restfulness; Michael stood still for long intervals, with gathered muscles, then spun round like a teetotum, and stood still again; Rosamund did not trip, for women never trip, except when they fall on their noses, but she struck the ground with her foot as she moved, as if to some inaudible dance tune; and Inglewood, leaning quite quietly against a tree, had unconsciously clutched a branch and shaken it with a creative violence. Those giant gestures of Man, that made the high statues and the strokes of war, tossed and tormented all their limbs. Silently as they strolled and stood they were bursting like batteries with an animal magnetism.
“And now,” cried Moon quite suddenly, stretching out a hand on each side, “let’s dance round that bush!”
“Why, what bush do you mean?” asked Rosamund, looking round with a sort of radiant rudeness.
“The bush that isn’t there,” said Michael–“the Mulberry Bush.”
They had taken each other’s hands, half laughing and quite ritually; and before they could disconnect again Michael spun them all round, like a demon spinning the world for a top. Diana felt, as the circle of the horizon flew instantaneously around her, a far aerial sense of the ring of heights beyond London and corners where she had climbed as a child; she seemed almost to hear the rooks cawing about the old pines on Highgate, or to see the glowworms gathering and kindling in the woods of Box Hill.
The circle broke–as all such perfect circles of levity must break– and sent its author, Michael, flying, as by centrifugal force, far away against the blue rails of the gate. When reeling there he suddenly raised shout after shout of a new and quite dramatic character.
“Why, it’s Warner!” he shouted, waving his arms. “It’s jolly old Warner– with a new silk hat and the old silk moustache!”