Mary did not feel this Parthian shaft as she hurried off, only too glad to escape into the open air, to be free for an hour.
She walked fast down the streets, and then turned to the right towards the Brixton railway station. Her step was elastic, for she was young, and though her youth was ever being crushed down, it but lay latent, ready to spring up when opportunity offered. The sunshine and wind of this June day brought it out. She was happy for the time; there was a sparkle of delight in her eye—delight for this short liberty which was in so strong contrast to her usual drudgery.
In five minutes she was outside the station; then suddenly the joy faded from her face, and she stopped short, as she looked with dismay through the archway into the dark passage by which the railway is approached, appearing so cold and dismal after the outer warmth and light.
She realized that her walk was over now—she must get into the train. In a few rapid minutes she would be at Ludgate Hill—then in her father's office, to sit perhaps through all the afternoon in the hateful little inner room that she knew so well, and into which clients were never shown, to copy papers till her head ached. Ah, the misery of it!
She hesitated before taking her ticket. Oh, for a half-hour's more freedom! She trembled with the strength of her desire. She yearned, as no one can who has not lived her life, for a respite, for but a little more time, to let her youth be filled with the glory of that summer day.
Her head seemed to turn with the temptations and ideas that crowded one on the other upon her. "Why should she go by train at all? Why not walk all the way to Ludgate Hill? What was to prevent her? Fear of her father—No!" and at the thought her head became defiantly erect, and her expression more obstinate. "Fear, she didn't fear."
Then in a moment her mind was made up; the impulse conquered; she turned her back suddenly on the station and walked off, a gleam of guilty joy in her eyes.
Having gone so far in revolt, she, as is natural, went yet a step further, and loitered quite slowly through the streets, looking into shop windows and amusing herself by studying the people who passed her, all which was very different from her usual behaviour when out of doors.
She felt like a real girl now, and the childish joy and excitement that flushed her cheek and shone in her eyes gave a rare beauty to her face, such as it had perhaps never worn before, so that passers looked with admiration and wonder at the fairy-like girl who, so shabbily and quaintly dressed, yet so graceful and so pretty, tripped lightly by them, the very model for a Cinderella.