Oh---- his contempt was unbounded

　　"Oh----" his contempt was unbounded. "I mean a bigperformance like this, illuminated boats, and all therest."She flushed at the picture. "Do they send them up fromthe Lake, too?""Rather. Didn't you notice that big raft wepassed? It's wonderful to see the rocketscompleting their orbits down under one's feet." Shesaid nothing, and he put the oars into the rowlocks.
　　"If we stay we'd better go and pick up something toeat.""But how can we get back afterwards?" she ventured,feeling it would break her heart if she missed it.
　　He consulted a time-table, found a ten o'clock trainand reassured her. "The moon rises so late that itwill be dark by eight, and we'll have over an hour ofit."Twilight fell, and lights began to show along theshore. The trolleys roaring out from Nettleton becamegreat luminous serpents coiling in and out among thetrees. The wooden eating-houses at the Lake's edgedanced with lanterns, and the dusk echoed with laughterand shouts and the clumsy splashing of oars.
　　Harney and Charity had found a table in the corner of abalcony built over the Lake, and were patientlyawaiting an unattainable chowder. Close under them thewater lapped the piles, agitated by the evolutions of alittle white steamboat trellised with coloured globeswhich was to run passengers up and down the Lake.
　　It was already black with them as it sheered off on itsfirst trip.
　　Suddenly Charity heard a woman's laugh behind her. Thesound was familiar, and she turned to look. A band ofshowily dressed girls and dapper young men wearingbadges of secret societies, with new straw hats tiltedfar back on their square-clipped hair, had invaded thebalcony and were loudly clamouring for a table. Thegirl in the lead was the one who had laughed. She worea large hat with a long white feather, and from underits brim her painted eyes looked at Charity with amusedrecognition.
　　"Say! if this ain't like Old Home Week," she remarkedto the girl at her elbow; and giggles and glancespassed between them. Charity knew at once that thegirl with the white feather was Julia Hawes. She hadlost her freshness, and the paint under her eyes madeher face seem thinner; but her lips had the same lovelycurve, and the same cold mocking smile, as if therewere some secret absurdity in the person she waslooking at, and she had instantly detected it.
　　Charity flushed to the forehead and looked away.
　　She felt herself humiliated by Julia's sneer, andvexed that the mockery of such a creature should affecther. She trembled lest Harney should notice that thenoisy troop had recognized her; but they found no tablefree, and passed on tumultuously.
　　Presently there was a soft rush through the air and ashower of silver fell from the blue evening sky. Inanother direction, pale Roman candles shot up singlythrough the trees, and a fire-haired rocket swept thehorizon like a portent. Between these intermittentflashes the velvet curtains of the darkness weredescending, and in the intervals of eclipse the voicesof the crowds seemed to sink to smothered murmurs.
　　Charity and Harney, dispossessed by newcomers, were atlength obliged to give up their table and strugglethrough the throng about the boat-landings. For awhile there seemed no escape from the tide of latearrivals; but finally Harney secured the last twoplaces on the stand from which the more privileged wereto see the fireworks. The seats were at the end of arow, one above the other. Charity had taken off herhat to have an uninterrupted view; and whenever sheleaned back to follow the curve of somedishevelled rocket she could feel Harney's kneesagainst her head.