a decoration of
the terrace, she was possibly the finest, most dazzling thing that
Bursley could have produced; and Bursley doubtless regretted that it
could only claim her as a daughter by adoption.

Approaching, step by dainty and precise step, the seat invested by Mr.
James Ollerenshaw, she arrived at the point whence she could distinguish
the features of her forestaller; she was somewhat short-sighted. She
gave no outward sign of fear, irresolution, cowardice. But if she had
not been more afraid of her own contempt than of anything else in the
world, she would have run away; she would have ceased being an empress
and declined suddenly into a scared child. However, her fear of her own
contempt kept her spine straight, her face towards the danger, and her
feet steadily moving.

"It's not my fault," she said to herself. "I meant to occupy that bench,
and occupy it I will. What have I to be ashamed of?"

And she did occupy that bench. She contrived to occupy it without seeing
Mr. Ollerenshaw. Each separate movement of hers denied absolutely the
existence of Mr. Ollerenshaw. She arranged her dress, and her parasol,
and her arms, and the exact angle of her chin; and there gradually fell
upon her that stillness which falls upon the figure of a woman when she
has definitively adopted an attitude in the public eye. She was gazing
at the gold angel, a mile off, which flashed in the sun. But what a
deceptive stillness was that stillness! A hammer was hammering away
under her breast with what seemed to her a reverberating sound. Strange
that that hammering did not excite attention throughout the park! Then
she had the misfortune to think of the act of blushing. She violently
willed not to blush. But her blood was too much for her. It displayed
itself in the most sanguinary manner first in the centre of each cheek,
and it increased its area of conquest until the whole of her visible
skin--even the back of her neck and her lobes--had rosily yielded. And
she was one of your girls who never blush! The ignominy of it! To blush
because she found herself within thirty inches of a man, an old man,
with whom she had never in her life exchanged a single word!

CHAPTER II

AN AFFAIR OF THE SEVENTIES

Having satisfied her obstinacy by sitting down on the seat of her
choice, she might surely--one would think--have ended a mysteriously
difficult situation by rising again and departing, of course with due
dignity. But no! She c