From somewhere up in the sky, under the topmost diamonded arch, there came a rumbling and a rushing—
It thrilled them, agitated them.
And their youth rose up in them. They looked at each other, and their eyes, the eyes of their youth, shone with the same excitement and the same desire.
She knew that he had deceived her, that this was not the Western Garden, where the band played; she was aware that the Exhibition was not to be trusted either; that it was in league with him against her; that if she yielded to it they were lost. And yet she yielded. The deep and high enchantment was upon her. The Exhibition had her by the hair. She was borne on, breathless, unprotesting, to the white palings where the paygate was.
It was worth it. She had to own it. Never before had either of them tasted such ecstasy; from the precipitous climb in the truck that hauled them, up and up, to the head of the high diamonded stair; the brief, exciting passage along the gangway to the boat that waited for them, its prow positively overhanging the topmost edge, the sliding lip of danger, where the rails plunged shining to the blackness below; the race they had for the front seat where, Ranny said, they would get the best of it; and then—the downrush!
It was as if they had been shot, exulting, from the sky to the water, sitting close, sitting tight, linked together, each with an arm round the other's waist, and the hand that was free grasping the rail, their bodies bowed to the hurricane of their speed, with the rapture in their throats mounting and mounting, a towering, toppling climax of delight and fear, as the boat shot from the rails into the water and rose like a winged thing and leaped, urging to the heights that had sent it forth, and dropped, perilously again, with a shudder and a smack, once, twice; so tremendous was the impetus.
They heard young girls behind them scream for joy; but they were dumb, they were motionless; they drank rapture through set teeth; it went throbbing through them and thrilling, prolonging its brief life in exquisite reverberations.
And as if that wasn't enough, they went and did it all over again.
And Winny struggled; she tried to hold him back; she put forth all her innocent guile; she pitted her fragile charm against the stupendous magic of the Exhibition. She loitered, spellbound to all appearance, in the bazaar, before the streaming, shining booths that poured out their strange merchandise, Italian, French, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese.
"I don't want to do anything but walk about and look at things," she said. "Why, we might have traveled for years and not seen as much."