because man attends to no purely unpleasant matter with such
praiseworthy assiduity. Anything more fixedly stolid than the Park
Lover when he passes his arm round his chosen one and takes her
crimson hand in his, I have never seen; unless, indeed, it be the
fixed stolidity of the chosen one herself. I had not at first the
assurance even to glance at them as I passed by, blushing myself to
the roots of my hair, though the offenders themselves never changed
colour. Many a time have I walked out of my way or lowered my
parasol, for fear of invading their Sunday Eden; but a spirit of
inquiry awoke in me at last, and I began to make psychological
investigations, with a view to finding out at what point
embarrassment would appear in the Park Lover. I experimented (it
was a most arduous and unpleasant task) with upwards of two hundred
couples, and it is interesting to record that self-consciousness was
not apparent in a single instance. It was not merely that they
failed to resent my stopping in the path directly opposite them, or
my glaring most offensively at them, nor that they even allowed me
to sit upon their green bench and witness their chaste salutes, but
it was that they did fail to perceive me at all! There is a kind of
superb finish and completeness about their indifference to the
public gaze which removes it from ordinary immodesty, and gives it a
certain scientific value.



Chapter VII. A ducal tea-party.



Among all my English experiences, none occupies so important a place