"He'll be up to see thee," put in the gentleman on the outskirts, "an' I dunnot blame him. I'm glad I coom mysen. Tha's worth th' trip—an' I'm a Dillup chap, moind yo'."
She stood quite still as before and let them look at her, to see what effect the words had produced. It seemed as if they had produced none.
"If you have come to see him," she said, after a few seconds, "you may go away again. He is not here. I know where he is, and you cannot reach him. If there has not been some blunder, he is far enough away."
She told the lie without flinching in the least, and with a clever coolness which led her to think in a flash beforehand even of the clause which would save her dignity if he should chance to come in the midst of her words.
"If you want to break windows," she went on, "break them here. They can be replaced afterward, and there is no one here to interfere with you. If you would like to vent your anger upon a woman, vent it upon me. I am not afraid of you. Look at me!"
She took half a step forward and presented herself to them—motionless. Not a fellow among them but felt that she would not have stirred if they had rushed upon her bodily. The effect of her supreme beauty and the cold defiance which had in it a touch of delicate insolence, was indescribable. This was not in accordance with their ideas of women of her class; they were used to seeing them discreetly keeping themselves in the shade in time of disorder. Here was one—"one of the nobs," as they said—who flung their threats to the wind and scorned them.
What they would have done when they recovered themselves is uncertain. The scale might have turned either way; but, just in the intervening moment which would have decided it, there arose a tumult in their midst. A man pushed his way with mad haste through the crowd and sprang upon the terrace at her side, amid yells and hoots from those who had guessed who he was.
An instant later they all knew him, though his dress was disordered, his head was bare, and his whole face and figure seemed altered by his excitement.
"Dom him!" they yelled. "Theer he is, by——!"
"I towd thee he'd coom," shouted the cynic. "He did na get th' tellygraph, tha sees."