"
When he said this, David heard a sound like the click of a trigger. He
looked up; it was Lucy clinching her teeth convulsively. But time was
up: the woman of the world must go on like the prizefighter. The
couples were waiting.
"Ri tum ti tum ti tum ti tum tiddy iddy." For all that, she did not
finish the tune. In the middle of it she said to David, "'Ri tum ti
tum--' can you get through this without me?--'ri tum.'"
"If I can get through life without you, I can surely get through this
twaddle: 'ri tum ti tum ti tum ti tum tiddy iddy.'" Lucy started from
her seat, leaving David plowing solo. She started from her seat and
stood a moment, looking like an angel stung by vipers. Her eye went
all round the room in one moment in search of some one to blight. It
surprised Mr. Hardie and Mrs. Bazalgette sitting together and casting
ironical glances pianoward: "So she has been betraying to Mr. Hardie
the secret she gained by listening," thought Lucy. The pair were
probably enjoying David's mortification, his misery.
She walked very slowly down the room to this couple. She looked them
long and full in the face with that confronting yet overlooking glance
which women of the world can command on great occasions. It fell, and
pressed on them both like lead, they could not have told you why. They
looked at one another ruefully when she had passed them, and then
their eyes followed her. They saw her walk straight up to her uncle,
and sit down by him, and take his hand.
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