Superficially, she was conscious of a good deal of irritation and displeasure; the Baroness was a very delicate and fastidious person.

Of old, more than once, she had gone, for entertainment's sake and in brilliant company, to a fair in a provincial town.

It seemed to her now that she was at an enormous fair--that the entertainment and the disagreements were very much the same.

She found herself alternately smiling and shrinking; the show was very curious, but it was probable, from moment to moment, that one would be jostled.
The Baroness had never seen so many people walking about before; she had never been so mixed up with people she did not know.

But little by little she felt that this fair was a more serious undertaking.