"I think the button may start the clouds as well as the machinery," he remarked. "They look as though they were only waiting some signal to pour down."
"We shall need a shower-bath to put out the fires of our enthusiasm," exclaimed Mildred, who looked as excited as she felt. "Oh, Jack, aren't you glad you are a Chicagoan? Aren't you glad that we've gathered goldenrod right in this very spot in front of the Administration Building?"
Jack protested that he shared this subtle joy fully; and at the moment a new shiver of expectation passed through the throng. The music had ceased. The President had begun to speak. It was a solemn moment, a triumphant moment, when at last the electric button was pressed, hitherto motionless machinery suddenly throbbed, and the vast pulses of the stately, statuesque White City began to beat.
Clover and Mildred unconsciously clasped hands, and their breath came fast as they stood facing the majestic Peristyle, its marble columns surmounted by the solemn, glad, immortal declaration: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
Jack stood beside them, his head bared before this beginning of a new era; for at the touching of the signal, down fell the veil from the golden Republic, up streamed the enormous jets of water from the fountains; color and movement thrilled along the roofs of the snowy palaces; flags of all nations unfurled gayly from myriad staffs; the boom of artillery thundered from the lake side; and as the multitude, swayed by mighty feeling, rent the air with cheers, the sun burst from a cloud and blessed the scene with new splendor. The World's Columbian Exposition had opened.
Van Tassel accepted Clover's invitation to dinner that afternoon when they reached home, chilled with much standing about in the spring wind.
The impersonal common interest of the day had done much toward reëstablishing the old easy relation among the trio.
"So Jeanie felt a call to visit her own kin, did she?" said Jack as they sat at table. "She is so much a part of the house I miss her."
"Yes; she could not be tempted from her project even by the prospect of the Fair. 'What do I want with the Fair?' she asked contemptuously. 'Chicago's just got unbearable since they started it.' But she wanted me to promise to take her back when all the excitement is over and she returns to America," said Clover. "Of course we miss her very much; but at present we get on finely."
"Yes," remarked Mildred, "I don't know that Jeanie would be pleased to know how well. I believe she was right. No doubt a person of her sort would be more fatigued than interested by the Fair."