THE WHEEL
It was a summer nightfall in the Kursaal Gardens. The turnstiles of the new Main Entrance in Pontnewydd Street revolved ceaselessly, with a noise as of an unending rack and pinion. The lightly clad merrymakers poured under the trees that had electric globes for fruit; they moved towards the cream-coloured buildings that, with their illuminations, seemed no more than footlights to the solemn stage of the immeasurable blue beyond. Most of them were going to that Dancing-Hall where all the youths and maidens of the world seemed to dance together; the others hurried to keep appointments, to sit at the little tables where the waiters moved on the grass, to join the slowly moving circle about the bandstand, or to see the side-shows. The band played the "Lohengrin" Prelude; the soft sound of gravel crunching underfoot mingled with the music; and the great lighted circle of the Big Wheel rose against the sky.
In the topmost coach of the Wheel sat John Willie Garden and June Lacey. They were alone in the bright upholstered compartment. June wore her Juniest frock and an engagement ring; John Willie, who had been walking, was in cap and knickers. They had been engaged since the Spring, and everybody had said how splendidly it would "do." They had played together (everybody had said) since childhood, knew exactly what to expect and what not to expect of one another, had (as they put it) the solid cake to cut at when the sugar and the almond-paste had begun to pall, and what could have been more romantic?
"They'd be hard put to it to think of anything they're short of," everybody had said.
From the windows of the car they could see the whole of Llanyglo. With the turning of the Wheel they had watched its lights rise slowly over the intervening roofs, and then slowly sink away again. Now, to see the grounds below, they had to step to the windows and to look almost vertically down, through the intricacy of girders and lattice and mammoth supporting piers.
"It takes about twenty minutes to go round, doesn't it?" June asked.
"About that," John Willie replied absently.
"Look at the Trwyn light!"
"Yes, dear."
"We aren't as high as that, are we?"