and her arms, and the exact angle of her chin; and there gradually fell
upon her that stillness which falls upon the figure of a woman when she
has definitively adopted an attitude in the public eye. She was gazing
at the gold angel, a mile off, which flashed in the sun. But what a
deceptive stillness was that stillness! A hammer was hammering away
under her breast with what seemed to her a reverberating sound. Strange
that that hammering did not excite attention throughout the park! Then
she had the misfortune to think of the act of blushing. She violently
willed not to blush. But her blood was too much for her. It displayed
itself in the most sanguinary manner first in the centre of each cheek,
and it increased its area of conquest until the whole of her visible
skin--even the back of her neck and her lobes--had rosily yielded. And
she was one of your girls who never blush! The ignominy of it! To blush
because she found herself within thirty inches of a man, an old man,
with whom she had never in her life exchanged a single word!




CHAPTER II

AN AFFAIR OF THE SEVENTIES


Having satisfied her obstinacy by sitting down on the seat of her
choice, she might surely--one would think--have ended a mysteriously
difficult situation by rising again and departing, of course with due
dignity. But no! She could not! She wished to do so, but she could not
command her limbs. She just sat there, in horridest torture, like a
stoical fly on a pin--one of those flies that pretend that nothing