lda's self-consciousness
a vague alarm.

She continued busy with her gloves, silent.

"And on Saturday afternoon too, when everybody's abroad!" Sarah Gailey
added gloomily, with her involuntary small movements of the head.

"He asked me if I could go out with him for a minute or two at once,"
said Hilda, and picked up the parasol with a decisive gesture.

"There's a great deal too much talk about you and George as it is," said
Sarah with an acrid firmness.

"Talk about me and--!" Hilda cried, absolutely astounded.

She had no feeling of guilt, but she knew that she was looking guilty,
and this knowledge induced in her the actual sensations of a criminal.

"I'm sure I don't want--" Sarah Gailey began, and was interrupted by a
quiet tap at the door.

George Cannon entered.

"Ready, miss?" he demanded, smiling, before he had caught sight of her
face.

For the second time that afternoon he saw her scarlet, and now there
were tears in her eyes, too.

She hesitated an instant.

"Yes," she answered with a painful gulp, and moved towards the door.

CHAPTER II
THE UNKNOWN ADVENTURE

I

When they were fairly out in the street Hilda felt like a mariner who
has escaped from a lee shore, but who is beset by the vaguer and even
more formidable perils of the open sea. She was in a state of extreme
agitation, and much too self-conscious to be properly cognisant of her
surroundings; she did not feel the pavement with her feet; she had no
recollection of having passed out of the house. There she was walking
along on nothing, by the side of a man who might or might not be George
Cannon, amid tall objects that resembled houses! Her situation was in a
high degree painful, but she could not have avoided it. She could not,
in Sarah's bedroom, have fallen into sobs, or into a rage, or into the
sulks, and told George Cannon that she would not go with him; she could
not have dashed hysterically away and hidden herself on an upper floor,
in the manner of a startled fawn. Her spirit was too high for such
tricks. On the other hand, she was by no means sufficiently mistress of
herself to be able to hide from him her shame. Hence she faced him and
followed him, and let him see it. Their long familiarity had made this
surrender somewhat easier for her. After all, in the countless daily
contacts, they had grown accustomed to minor self-exposures--and Hilda
more so than George Cannon; Hilda was too impatient and impulsive not