Page:In The Cage (London, Duckworth, 1898).djvu/85

Rh nervousness to the side of the wonderful face which, with eyes of anxiety for the paper on the counter, she brought closer to the bars of the cage. 'I think I must alter a word!' On this she recovered her telegram and looked over it again; but she had a new, obvious trouble, and studied it without deciding and with much of the effect of making our young woman watch her.

This personage, meanwhile, at the sight of her expression, had decided on the spot. If she had always been sure they were in danger, her ladyship's expression was the best possible sign of it. There was a word wrong, but she had lost the right one, and much, clearly, depended on her finding it again. The girl, therefore, sufficiently estimating the affluence of customers and the distraction of Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk, took the jump and gave it. 'Isn't it Cooper's?'

It was as if she had bodily leaped—cleared the top of the cage and alighted on her interlocutress. 'Cooper's?'—the stare was heightened by a blush. Yes, she had made Juno blush.