It was essential that dear Martin should be made to feel his fireworks a success. They had behind them so eager a purpose of giving amusement to others that they deserved tremendous encouragement. You felt he had spent every penny of his pocket-money on them. There was a shout of laughter and screams from Julian. He had left the piano and was joining the others on the lawn; and the Catherine wheel had broken loose and was after him, snapping and leaping at his heels. A shower of golden sparks went up in a fountain and poured down over the tulips and wall-flowers. Another followed; but this time the shower was rainbow-coloured. The deep talk and laughter of Martin, Julian and Tony was a strange not quite human chorus in the moonless dark. ‘Oh, Roddy, isn’t it exciting?’ ‘It is indeed.’ The fireworks became more and more splendid. Long crystal-white cascades broke and streamed down to the grass. Things went off in the air with a soft delicious explosion and blossomed in great blazing coloured drops that lingered downwards like a drift of slow petals. ‘Oh, Roddy, if only----! They’re so brief. I wish they were never quenched but went on falling and falling, so lovely for ever. Would you be content to burst into life and be a ten seconds’ marvel and then vanish?’ But Roddy only smiled. On his face was the mask behind which he guarded his personal pleasures and savoured them in secret. Suddenly the willow-trees were revealed cloudily in a crude red light,--then an aching green one,--then one like the concentrated essence of a hundred moonlights. The three men on the lawn were outlined in its glare, motionless, with their heads up. She heard Martin cursing. Something was a complete failure: it spat twice, threw a thin spark or so and went out. Then the big rocket took wings with a swift warning hiss, left in its wake a thick firefly trail and broke at a great height with a velvety choke of fulfilment and relief, bloomed rapidly in perfect symmetry, a huge inverted gold lily,--then started dropping slowly, flower unfurling wide from the heart of coloured flower all the way down. ‘Roddy, look at that! Honestly, you feel anything so lovely must be made by enchantment and thrown into the air with no cause behind it except the--the stress of its own beauty. I can’t connect it with Bryant and May, can you?’ Then all was gone. There was a splash. A swan drifting near the canoe shook itself and swirled sharply, with puffed wings, into the shadows. Roddy picked a charred stick out of the water and held it up. ‘Signs and wonders!’ he said. ‘The swan had a revelation too. Here’s a remedy against fancy, Judy. Wouldn’t you like to keep it?’ ‘Throw it away at once.’ He flipped it over his shoulder laughing. The fireworks were over, and the three men were coming down towards the water’s edge. Roddy whispered: ‘Shall we escape?’ ‘Oh....’ It was too late. ‘Hullo! Hullo!’ called the cheerful voice of Martin. ‘Did you enjoy my fireworks?’