her that I speak of was but her own desire to stop it.
That dropped, however, as if the alarm itself had
ceased; she seemed to have seen in a quick, though
tempered glare that there were two courses for her,
one to leave London again the first thing in the morn
ing, the other to do nothing at all. Well, she would
do nothing at all; she was already doing it; more
than that, she had already done it, and her chance
was gone. She gave herself up she had the
strangest sense, on the spot, of so deciding; for she
had turned a corner before she went on again with
Lord Mark. Inexpressive, but intensely significant,
he met as no one else could have done the very ques
tion she had suddenly put to Mrs. Stringham on the
Briinig. Should she have it, whatever she did have,
that question had been, for long? " Ah, so possibly
not," her neighbour appeared to reply; " therefore,
don't you see? I'm the way." It was vivid that he
might be, in spite of his absence of flourish; the way
being doubtless just in that absence. The handsome
girl, whom she didn't lose sight of and who, she felt,
kept her also in view Mrs. Lowder's striking niece
would, perhaps, be the way as well, for in her too
was the absence of flourish, though she had little else,
so far as one could tell, in common with Lord Mark.
Yet how indeed could one tell, what did one under
stand, and of what was one, for that matter, provis
ionally conscious but of their being somehow to
gether in what they represented? Kate Croy, fine
but friendly, looked over at her as really with a guess

[[176]]

p175 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p176w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p177

v?