There was the soft line of an involuntary frown over her white face, and
as he held her arm from the doubled elbow, with her clenched hand aloft,
she appeared ready to strike a tragic blow.

Anger and every other sentiment vanished from Mr. Pericles in the
rapturous contemplation of her admirable artistic pose.

"Mon Dieu! and wiz a voice!" he exclaimed, dashing his fist in a delirium
of forgetfulness against the one plastered lock of hair on his shining
head. "Little fool! little dam fool!--zat might have been"--(Mr.
Pericles figured in air with his fingers to signify the exaltation she
was to have attained)--"Mon Dieu! and look at you! Did I not warn you?
non a vero? Did I not say 'Ruin, ruin, if you go so? For a man!--a
voice! You will not come to me? Zen, hear! you shall go to old
Belloni. I do not want you, my pretty dear. Woman is a trouble, a drug.
You shall go to old Belloni; and, crack! if ze voice will come back to a
whip,--bravo, old Belloni!"

Mr. Pericles turned to reach down his hat from a peg. At the same
instant Emilia quitted the room.

Dusk was deepening the yellow atmosphere, and the crowd was now steadily
flowing in one direction. The bereaved creature went with the stream,
glad to be surrounded and unseen, till it struck her, at last, that she
was moving homeward. She stopped with a pang of grief, turned, and met
all those people to whom the fireside was a beacon. For some time she
bore against the pressure, but her loneliness overwhelmed her. None
seemed to go her way. For a refuge, she turned into one of the city side
streets, where she was quite alone. Unhappily, the street was of no
length, and she soon came to the end of it. There was the choice of