eels, crowded with pale, tired bees--the stars march slowly from the
western slope to their light viewless pinnacle in the center of the
heavens, walking brightly like strong men in silvered armor--the stars
and the buses, the buses and the stars, either and both of as little and
much account--it would not really surprise either Oliver or Nancy if
the next green bus that passes should start climbing into the sky like a
clumsy bird.

The first intoxication is still upon them--they have told nobody except
anyone who ever sees them together--they walk tactfully and never too
close, both having a horror of publicly amatory couples, but like the
king's daughter--or was it Solomon's Temple?--they are all glorious
within. Fifty-fifth, Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh--the square in front of
the Plaza--that tall chopped bulky tower lit from within like a model
in a toyshop window--motors purring up to its door like thin dark cats,
motors purring away. The fountain with the little statue--the pool a
cool dark stone cracked with the gold of the lights upon it, and near
the trees of the Park, half-hidden, gold Sherman, riding, riding,
Victory striding ahead of him with a golden palm.

Ahead of them too goes Victory, over fear, over doubt, over littleness,
her gold shoes ring like the noise of a sparkling sword, her steps are
swift. They stand for an instant, hands locked, looking back at the
long roller-coaster swoop of the Avenue, listening to the roll of tired
wheels, the faint horns, the loud horns. They know each other now--their
hands grip tighter--in the wandering instant the whole background of
streets and tall buildings passes like breath from a mirror--for the
instant without breath or clamor, they exist together, one being, and
the being has neither flesh to use the senses too clumsily, nor human
thoughts to rust at the will, but lives with the strength of a thunder
and the heedlessness of a wave in a wide and bright eternity of the
unspoken.

"All the same," says Nancy, when the moment passes, lifting a shoe with
the concern of a kitten that has just discovered a thorn in its paw,
"New York pavements are certainly _hard_ on loving feet."

VII

So the picture came. And other pictures like it. And since the living
that had made them was past for a little they were both fainter and in
a measure brighter with more elfin colors than even that living had been
which had made them glow at first. White memory had taken them