"If you go I go also."
"Then don't talk so much--and come!"
He had been holding my hand. I snatched it from him and was on the ice. In an instant he was at my side. I was filled with a curious excitement. Something had got into my blood, microbes perhaps, of a fever-generating kind. The various passages of arms which we had had together seemed, all at once, to have reached their climax. I was seized with a sudden frenzy of resolve to show him, once for all, that what it was my pleasure to do that I would do. I craved for motion; yearned for movement--if only as a means of relief for my pent-up feelings. Longed for a flight through the air, to rush through it, to race. Especially to race that man--or to escape from him. I did not care much which.
I struck out for all that I was worth. As I had surmised, the ice was in perfect condition as regards its surface. Sufficiently elastic to enable the blade of one's skates to bite on to it, smooth enough to offer no impediment to their onward glide. One skimmed over it almost without conscious effort. The ecstasy of doing something; the sense of freedom which it gave; the delight of tearing through the keen, clear atmosphere; of feeling it upon one's cheeks--ruffling one's hair--exhilarating one's whole being--breathing it in great gulps into one's lungs--these were the things I needed. And I had hardly been enjoying them half a dozen seconds when the bonds which had seemed to bind me parted, proving themselves to be but the phantasmal creations of a crooked mood. And I laughed, in my turn.
"Isn't it glorious?"
"While it lasts."
"Why the reservation? Isn't it glorious, now?"
We had gone right across the lake. We swung round at a right angle.
"I thought it wasn't safe!"
"What's that?"