She stood between them now, in her white dress, wrapped around with a long, white Chinese shawl, and the light from the open window behind them fell upon her hair, her neck, her shoulders, and the shawl’s soft, thick embroideries that were like frozen milk.
Gavan and Grainger leaned against the deep creepers of the old walls, Gavan’s cigarette a steady little point of light, the glow of Grainger’s pipe, as he puffed, coming and going in sharp pulses of color.
Aunt Barbara sat within at the open window, and beyond the gates, at the edge of the moor, the general and the gardener, dark figures fitfully revealed by the light of lanterns, superintended the preparations.
The moment was like that in which one watches a poised orchestra, in which one waits, tense and expectant, for the fall of the conductor’s bâton and for the first, sweeping note.
It seemed to break upon the stillness, sound made visible, when the herald rocket soared up from the dark earth, up to the sky of stars.
Bizarre, exquisite, glorious, it caught one’s breath with the swiftness, the strength, the shining, of its long, exultant flight; its languor of attainment; its curve and droop; the soft shock of its blossoming into an unearthly metamorphosis of splendor far and high on the zenith.
The note was struck and after it the symphony followed.
Like a ravished Ganymede, the sense of sight soared amazed among dazzling ecstasies of light and movement.
Thin ribbons of fire streaked the sky; radiant sheaves showered drops of multitudinous gold; fierce constellations of color whirled themselves to stillness on the night’s solemn permanence; a rain of stars drifted wonderfully, with the softness of falling snow, down gulfs of space. And then again the rockets, strong, suave, swift, and their blossoming lassitude.
Eppie gazed, silent and motionless, her uplifted profile like a child’s in its astonished joy. Once or twice she looked round at Gavan and at Grainger,--always first at Gavan,--smiling, and speechless with delight. Her folded arms had dropped to her sides and the shawl fell straightly from her shoulders. She made one think of some young knight, transfixed before a heavenly vision, a benediction of revealed beauty. The trivial occasion lent itself to splendid analogies. The strange light from above bathed her from head to foot in soft, intermittent, heavenly color.