; have
I kept my veil straight?"

"Charming," said Edmund, with a low bow. The child really looked very
pretty, though rather like a little dairymaid dressed up for fun, and
her long gloves slipped far enough from the shoulders to show some
splendidly red arms.

"Charming," he said again in a half-teasing voice. "Only I don't approve
of such late hours for children."

It amused him that this was one of the presentations that would be most
noted in the papers, and this funny, jolly little girl would probably
gain a good deal of knowledge and lose a great deal more of charm in
the next three months.

Walking by the mother and daughter, he had come close to the open doors
of a long gallery, and stood for a moment to take in the picture. It was
not new to him, but perhaps he felt inclined to the attitude of an
onlooker to-night, and there was something in this attitude slightly
aloof and independent. Brilliant was the one word for the scene; a
little hard, perhaps, in colouring, and the women in their plumes and
veils were too uniform to be artistic. There was too much gold, too much
red silk, too many women in the long rows waiting with more or less
impatience or nervousness to get through with it. The scene had an
almost crude simplicity of insistence on fine feathers and gilding the
obvious pride of life. Yet he saw the little fair country girl near him
look awe-struck, and he understood it. For a fresh imagination, or for
one that has, for some reason, a fresh sensitiveness of perception, the
great gallery, the wealth of fair women, the scattered men in uniform,
the solemn waiting for entrance into the royal presence, were enough.
And there really is a certain force in the too gaudy setting. It blares
like a trumpet. It crushes the quiet and the repose of life. It shines
in the eye defiantly and suddenly, and at last it captures the mind and
makes the breath come quickly, for, like no other and more perfect
setting to life, it makes us think of death. It is too bald an assertion
of the world and all its works and all its pomps, not to challenge a
rebuke from the grisly tyrant.

Edmund had not analysed these impressions, but he was still under their
power when he turned to let others pass, for the crowd was thickening.
And as he did so, a little space was opened by three or four ladies
turning round to secure places for some friends on the long seats
against the walls.

Across this space he saw a woman, whom, for