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As she neared the bottom of the dip in Piccadilly she saw a woman
approaching her from the opposite direction--a tall woman who at
the first glance seemed altogether beautiful and fine. She came
along with the fluttering assurance of some tall ship. Then as
she drew nearer paint showed upon her face, and a harsh purpose
behind the quiet expression of her open countenance, and a sort
of unreality in her splendor betrayed itself for which Ann
Veronica could not recall the right word --a word, half
understood, that lurked and hid in her mind, the word
"meretricious." Behind this woman and a little to the side of
her, walked a man smartly dressed, with desire and appraisal in
his eyes. Something insisted that those two were mysteriously
linked--that the woman knew the man was there.
It was a second reminder that against her claim to go free and
untrammelled there was a case to be made, that after all it was
true that a girl does not go alone in the world unchallenged, nor
ever has gone freely alone in the world, that evil walks abroad
and dangers, and petty insults more irritating than dangers,
lurk.
It was in the quiet streets and squares toward Oxford Street that
it first came into her head disagreeably that she herself was
being followed. She observed a man walking on the opposite side
of the way and looking toward her.
"Bother it all!" she swore. "Bother!" and decided that this was
not so, and would not look to right or left again.
Beyond the Circus Ann Veronica went into a British Tea-Table
Company shop to get some tea. And as she was yet waiting for her
tea to come she saw this man again. Either it was an unfortunate
recovery of a trail, or he had followed her from Mayfair. There
was no mistaking his intentions this time. He came down the shop
looking for her quite obviously, and took up a position on the
other side against a mirror in which he was able to regard her
steadfastly.
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