It was past nine that evening before Madame Mirabel’s head milliner had sufficiently made up her afternoon’s holiday to be able to leave the workroom. There was a purple twilight over the whole busy town, and the lamplighter was going round with his ladder, leaving a jonquil flame behind him at long intervals. Here and there a torch flared in a link. The streets were full of the sound of feet, the quick feet of those hurrying home, the slow feet of the strollers. Pamela was tired; the day had been a long and agitating one. She paused a moment on the pavement, outside the shop, to inhale the warm air, and to enjoy the sense of leisure, at last. Her mind worked mechanically.
“A twist of purple net on dark blue satin, with a tuft of orange feathers. ’Twould be a new combination and vastly genteel. (’Twould suit my Lady Kilcroney too, with her pansy eyes.)”
Some one came up behind her with a quick tread that suddenly faltered. Then a voice called her:
“Pamela!”
“La, Mr. Bellairs, what a start you give me!”
“May I go a little way with you, Pamela dear?”
“There now! If that isn’t a gentleman all over, and me having only just re-established my character! A-waiting for me again outside Madame Mirabel’s, with goodness gracious knows how many cats’ eyes a-spying on me from behind the shutters!”
Something about the girl’s gay courage, her sane, bright outlook on life, touched him at a spot already exceedingly vulnerable. Anyone else, he thought, would be having the vapours over this afternoon’s work; reproaching, weeping, lost in self-pity and recrimination. He reflected, too, how it might have been, had she listened to him one winter’s evening, and one summer’s day. A girl in a thousand! His mind had been already made up, but he ratified the inner decision with an ardent leap of the heart.
They went on side by side, till they reached the Park, and then she remembered again, how, a few yards away, nearly two years ago, she had snatched a pistol from him. He stopped her, and spoke.