girl that (despite her own superabundant bulk) she must needs cross over
and sit beside her and pat her hand at intervals. In certain extreme
cases Eudoxia was willing to waive the matter of comparison with other
women; but to find herself seated beside a man of lesser bulk than
herself seriously inconvenienced her, while to realize herself standing
beside a man of lesser stature embarrassed her most cruelly. As she was
fond of mixed society, her liberal figure was on the move most of the
time.

She was too enchanted with Medora Giles to be able to keep away from her,
but the approach of Adrian Bond--he was a great studio dawdler--presently
put her to rout. For Adrian was much too small. He was spare, he was
meagre; he was sapless, like his books; and the part in his smoothly
plastered black hair scarcely reached to her eyebrows. She felt herself
swelling, distending, filling her place to repletion, to suffocation, and
rose to flee. She was for seeking refuge in the brown beard of Stephen
Giles, which was at least on a level with her own chin, when suddenly she
perceived, in a dark corner of the place, a tower of strength more
promising still--a man even taller, broader, bulkier than herself, a
grand figure that might serve to reduce her to more desirable
proportions.

"Who is he?" she asked Giles, as she seized him by the elbow. "Take me
over there at once."

Giles laughed. "Why, that's Joyce," he said. "He's got so that he looks
in on us now and then."

"Joyce? What Joyce?"