see mirrored as in some visual memory the
picture she was trying to ignore. In a faint panic, hardly conscious to
her fear, she stared at her neighbour's newspaper, spelling out the
headings to some of the paragraphs, until the need of such protection
was past.

As the car proceeded over the bridge, grinding its way through the still
rolling echoes of the striking hour, it seemed part of an endless
succession of such cars, all alike crowded with homeward-bound
passengers, and all, to the curious mind, resembling ships that pass
very slowly at night from safe harbourage to the unfathomable elements
of the open sea. It was such a cold still night that the sliding windows
of the car were almost closed, and the atmosphere of the covered upper
deck was heavy with tobacco smoke. It was so dark that one could not see
beyond the fringes of the lamplight upon the bridge. The moon was in its
last quarter, and would not rise for several hours; and while the
glitter of the city lay behind, and the sky was greyed with light from
below, the surrounding blackness spread creeping fingers of night in
every shadow.

The man sitting beside Jenny continued to puff steadfastly at his pipe,
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