With a quick involuntary turn she looked at Marsh, fearing his mockery
of her, "quoting the _Paradiso_, about Vermont farmers!" as though he
could know, for all those sharp eyes of his, what was going on hidden in
her mind!

All this came and went in an instant, for she now saw that one big,
shining petal was slowly, slowly, but quite visibly uncurling at the
tip. From that moment on, she saw nothing, felt nothing but the opening
flower, lived only in the incredibly leisurely, masterful motion with
which the grotesquely shaped protecting petals curled themselves back
from the center. Their motion was so slow that the mind was lost in
dreaminess in following it. Had that last one moved? No, it stood still,
poised breathlessly . . . and yet, there before them, revealed, exultant,
the starry heart of the great flower shimmered in the lamp-light.

* * * * *

Then she realized that she had not breathed. She drew in a great
marveling aspiration, and heard everyone about her do the same. They
turned to each other with inarticulate exclamations, shaking their heads
wonderingly, their lips a little apart as they drew long breaths.

Two very old women, rubbing their age-dimmed eyes, stood up, tiptoed to
the table, and bent above the miraculously fine texture of the flower
their worn and wrinkled faces. The petals cast a clear, rosy reflection
upon their sallow cheeks. Some of the younger mothers took their little
children over to the table and lifting them up till their round shining
eyes were on a level with the flower, let them gaze their fill at the
mysterious splendor of stamen and pistil.