explain the little secret. Flora bent her head over it, but she clearly
didn't understand. I saw her, in a manner that quickened my curiosity,
give a glance back at the place from which she had come. Lord Iffield
was talking with another young person; she satisfied herself of this by
the aid of a question addressed to her own attendant. She then drew
closer to the table near which she stood and, turning her back 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