Chapter 6 - Page 2

to me, bent her head lower over the collection of toys and more
particularly over the small object the girl had attempted to
explain. She took it again and, after a moment, with her face well
averted, made an odd motion of her arms and a significant little
duck of her head. These slight signs, singular as it may appear,
produced in my bosom an agitation so great that I failed to notice
Lord Iffield's whereabouts. He had rejoined her; he was close upon
her before I knew it or before she knew it herself. I felt at that
instant the strangest of all promptings: if it could have operated
more rapidly it would have caused me to dash between them in some
such manner as to give Flora a caution. In fact as it was I think
I could have done this in time had I not been checked by a
curiosity stronger still than my impulse. There were three seconds
during which I saw the young man and yet let him come on. Didn't I
make the quick calculation that if he didn't catch what Flora was
doing I too might perhaps not catch it? She at any rate herself
took the alarm. On perceiving her companion's nearness she made,
still averted, another duck of her head and a shuffle of her hands
so precipitate that a little tin steamboat she had been holding
escaped from them and rattled down to the floor with a sharpness
that I hear at this hour. Lord Iffield had already seized her arm;
with a violent jerk he brought her round toward him. Then it was
that there met my eyes a quite distressing sight: this exquisite
creature, blushing, glaring, exposed, with a pair of big black-
rimmed eye-glasses, defacing her by their position, crookedly
astride of her beautiful nose. She made a grab at them with her
free hand while I turned confusedly away.