She felt a new sensation of shame and terror creep over her in the midst of all these grand people who were so different from herself. They were looking at her, questioning her right to be there, she thought, and her confusion increased.
She glanced around with nervous bewilderment, and her face and neck flushed crimson. Some were looking at her, it is true; her rare grace and beauty contrasting with her old-fashioned shabby dress naturally attracted attention. Dowagers deliberately raised their pince-nez and stared at her, and young men of fashion gazed with open admiration.
"Oh, this won't do at all!" she said to herself, and she hurried off through the throng till she reached the comparatively deserted open green space in the centre of the Park.
And now she could give play to her feelings. When no one was by, she went wild for a while and clapped her hands with joy, and all because she was alone in the world with a fortune of just six pennies.
At last she sobered down, and sitting on a bench began to ponder quietly but no less happily.
Now it happened that a Satyr of the Parks had seen her from afar off.
So presently there came by an elderly gentleman who was dressed in the height of fashion, belaced, bedyed as to whiskers, and with an affectation of youthful suppleness that must have made his old limbs ache again.
He passed her once, glanced at her, then after a few paces returned again and sat down beside her.
She did not notice him, so absorbed was she in her speculations as how best to invest her capital.
After eyeing her askance for a few minutes, the old gentleman, wishing to break the ice, and not being able to evolve on the spur of the moment anything more original in the way of remarks, said in a smooth and conciliatory voice: