eight they flinched aside and drooped again to her lap.
The astounding thought that she was sitting beside a man warmed and
affrighted her blood so that it rushed burningly to her cheeks and
went shuddering back again coldly. Her downcast eyes were almost
mesmerized by the huge tweed-clad knees which towered like monoliths
beside her. They rose much higher than her knees did, and extended far
out more than a foot and a half beyond her own modest stretch. Her
knees slanted gently downwards as she sat, but his jagged straightly
forward, like the immovable knees of a god which she had seen once in
the Museum. On one of these great knees an equally great hand rested.
Automatically she placed her own hand on her lap and, awe-stricken,
tried to measure the difference. Her hand was very tiny and as white
as snow: it seemed so light that the breathing of a wind might have
fluttered it. The wrist was slender and delicate, and through its
milky covering faint blue veins glimmered. A sudden and passionate
wish came to her as she watched her wrist. She wished she had a red
coral bracelet on it, or a chain of silver beaten into flat discs, or
even two twists of little green beads. The hand that rested on the
neighboring knee was bigger by three times than her own, the skin on
it was tanned to the color of ripe mahogany-wood, and the heat of the
day had caused great purple veins to grow in knots and ridges across
the back and running in big twists down to the wrists. The specific
gravity of that hand seemed tremendous; she could imagine it holding
down the strong neck of a bull. It moved continually while he spoke
to her, closing in a tense strong grip that changed the mahogany color
to a dull whiteness and opening again to a ponderous, inert width.

She was ashamed that she could find nothing to say. Her vocabulary had
suddenly and miserably diminished to a "yes" and "no," only tolerably
varied by a timid "indeed" and "I did not know that." Against the easy
clamor of his speech she could find nothing to oppose, and ordinarily
her tongue tripped and eddied and veered as easily and nonchalantly as
a feather in a wind. But he did not mind silence. He interpreted it
rightly as the natural homage of a girl to a policeman. He liked this
homage because it helped him to feel as big as he looked, and he had
every belief in his ability to conduct a polite and interesting
conversation with any lady for an indefinite time.

After a while Mary