Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/195

 takes his revenge on the high cost of living. I avoided looking at the coal-man.

Flora Furness caught my wandering eye, across the veranda, and she gave me not exactly a smile, but at least a facial movement of friendly recognition. Her mother had discovered that I had once visited a member of the artist colony in Amberley, which is beside the river Arun, opposite Bury; and, though I had never been in Bury itself, I had stood on the downs above Amberley and seen the spire of Bury church among the trees across the river and the weald. It gave me a standing with the Furnesses that no one else in Centerbrook could approach.

The next thing I saw was Con Gorman speaking to Flora Furness. And, as I say, I thought that I had turned his young head.

She was standing near the veranda door, between her mother and Lieutenant Williamson. The music had struck up, inside; the dancers were streaming past her in answer to its call, and Con had stopped, incredibly, to ask her for a dance. At least I judged that was what had happened. I could not see his face, but I could see hers and her mother's and Williamson's.

Mrs. Furness wore her hair like the Dowager Queen Alexander, whom she respectfully resembled; she was holding herself regally erect, high-shouldered, with her hands clasped on her stomacher, so to speak; and her expression had calmly obliter-