She turned and looked at him with suppressed amusement. "How high is
it?"

"Forty feet, about. I not let you fall." There was a note of
irresistible pleading in his voice, and she felt that he tremendously
wished her to go. Well, why not? This was a night of the unusual, when
she was not herself at all, but was living an unreality. Tomorrow, yes,
in a few hours, there would be the Vestibule Limited and the world.

"Well, if you'll take good care of me. I used to be able to climb, when
I was a little girl."

Once at the top and seated on the platform, they were silent. Margaret
wondered if she would not hunger for that scene all her life, through
all the routine of the days to come. Above them stretched the great
Western sky, serenely blue, even in the night, with its big, burning
stars, never so cold and dead and far away as in denser atmospheres. The
moon would not be up for twenty minutes yet, and all about the horizon,
that wide horizon, which seemed to reach around the world, lingered a
pale white light, as of a universal dawn. The weary wind brought up to
them the heavy odours of the cornfields. The music of the dance sounded
faintly from below. Eric leaned on his elbow beside her, his legs
swinging down on the ladder. His great shoulders looked more than ever
like those of the stone Doryphorus, who stands in his perfect, reposeful
strength in the Louvre, and had often made her wonder if such men died
forever with the youth of Greece.

"How sweet the corn smells at night," said Margaret nervously.

"Yes, like the flowers that grow in paradise, I think."

She was somewhat startled by this reply, and more startled when this
taciturn man spoke again.

"You go away tomorrow?"

"Yes, we have stayed longer than we thought to now."

"You not come back any more?"

"No, I expect not. You see, it is a long trip halfway across the
continent."

"You soon forget about this country, I guess." It seemed to him now
a little thing to lose his soul for this woman, but that she should
utterly forget this night into which he threw all his life and all his
eternity, that was a bitter thought.

"No, Eric, I will not forget. You have all been too kind to me for that.
And you won't be sorry you danced this one night, will you?"

"I never be sorry. I have not been so happy before. I not be so happy
again, ever. You will be happy many nights yet, I only this one. I will
dream sometimes, maybe."

The mighty resignation of