The blouse sat immovable on its wooden bust, absolute in its policy of reticence.

Miss Quincey had just decided that it had a thought too much mauve in it, and was most successfully routing desire by depreciation of its object when a shopman stepped on to the stage, treading airily among the gauzes and the flowers.

There was no artifice about the young man; it was in the dreamiest abstraction that he clasped that fair form round the collar and turned it to the light.

It shuddered like a living thing; its violent mauve vanished in silver grey.

The effect was irresistible.