lost in the news, holding mechanically in his further hand the return
ticket which would presently be snatched by the hurrying tram-conductor.
He was a shabby middle-aged clerk with a thin beard, and so he had not
the least interest for Jenny, whose eye was caught by other beauties
than those of assiduous labour. She had not even to look at him to be
quite sure that he did not matter to her. Almost, Jenny did not care
whether he had glanced sideways at herself or not. She presently gave a
quiet sigh of relief as at length the river was left behind and the
curious nervous tension--no more lasting than she might have felt at
seeing a man balancing upon a high window-sill--was relaxed. She
breathed more deeply, perhaps, for a few instants; and then, quite
naturally, she looked at her reflection in the sliding glass. That hat,
as she could see in the first sure speedless survey, had got the droops.
"See about you!" she said silently and threateningly, jerking her head.
The hat trembled at the motion, and was thereafter ignored. Stealthily
Jenny went back to her own reflection in the window, catching the
clearly-chiselled profile of her face, bereft in the dark mirror of all
its colour. She could see her nose and chin quite white, and her lips as
part of the general colourless gloom. A little white brooch at her neck
stood boldly out; and that was all that could be seen with any
clearness, as the light was not directly overhead. Her eyes were quite
lost, apparently, in deep shadows. Yet she could not resist the delight
of continuing narrowly to examine herself. The face she saw was hardly
recognisable as her own; but it was bewitchingly pale, a study in black
and white, the kind of face which, in a man, would at once have drawn
her attention and stimulated her curiosity. She had longed to be pale,
but the pallor she was achieving by millinery work in a stuffy room was
not the marble whiteness which she had desired. Only in the sliding
window could she see her face ideally transfigured. There it had the
brooding dimness of strange poetic romance. You couldn't know about that