Page:In The Cage (London, Duckworth, 1898).djvu/77

Rh almost sure that, if she dared, her ladyship's lover would have gathered relief from 'speaking' to her. She literally fancied once or twice that, projected as he was toward his doom, her own eyes struck him, while the air roared in his ears, as the one pitying pair in the crowd. But how could he speak to her while she sat sandwiched there between the counter-clerk and the sounder?

She had long ago, in her comings and goings, made acquaintance with Park Chambers, and reflected, as she looked up at their luxurious front, that they, of course, would supply the ideal setting for the ideal speech. There was not a picture in London that, before the season was over, was more stamped upon her brain. She went round about to pass it, for it was not on the short way; she passed on the opposite side of the street and always looked up, though it had taken her a long time to be sure of the particular set of windows. She had made that out at last by an act of audacity that, at the time, had almost stopped her heart-beats and that, in retrospect, greatly quickened her blushes. One evening, late, she had lingered and watched