Such musings were scarcely more than subconscious in him. He stood now
a few inches behind Hilda, and, above these thoughts, and beneath the
stir and strident glitter and noise of the crawling ant-heap, his mind
was intensely occupied with Hilda's ear and her nostril. He could watch
her now at leisure, for the changeful interest of the scene made
conversation unnecessary and even inept. What a lobe! What a nostril!
Every curve of her features seemed to express a fine arrogant acrimony
and harsh truculence. At any rate she was not half alive; she was alive
in every particle of herself. She gave off antipathies as a liquid
gives off vapour. Moods passed across her intent face like a wind over
a field. Apparently she was so rapt as to be unaware that her sunshade
was not screening her. Sadness prevailed among her moods.
The mild Edwin said secretly:
"By Jove! If I had you to myself, my lady, I'd soon teach you a thing
or two!" He was quite sincere, too.
His glance, roving, discovered Mrs Hamps above him, ten feet over his
head, at the corner of the Baines balcony. He flushed, for he perceived
that she must have been waiting to catch him. She was at her most
stately and most radiant, wonderful in lavender, and she poured out on
him the full opulence of a proud recognition.
Everybody should be made aware that Mrs Hamps was greeting her adored
nephew, who was with a lady friend of the Orgreaves.
She leaned slightly from her cane chair.
"Isn't it a beautiful sight?" she cried. Her voice sounded thin and
weak against the complex din of the Square.
He nodded, smiling.
"Oh! I think it's a beautiful sight!" she cried once more, ecstatic.
People turned to see whom she was addressing.
But though he nodded again he did not think it was a beautiful sight.
He thought it was a disconcerting sight, a sight vexatious and
troublesome. And he was in no way tranquillised by the reflection that
every town in England had the same sight to show at that hour.
And moreover, anticipating their next interview, he could, in fancy,
plainly hear his Aunt Clara saying, with hopeless, longing benignancy:
"Oh, Edwin, how I _do_ wish I could have seen you in the Square, bearing
your part!"
Hilda seemed to be oblivious of Mrs Hamps's ejaculations, but
immediately afterwards she straightened her back, with a gesture that
Edwin knew, and staring into his eyes said, as it were resentfully--
"Well, they evidently aren't here!"
And looked with scorn among the sightseers. It was clear that the crowd
contained nobody of the rank and stamp of the Orgreaves.
"They may have gone up the Cock Yard--if you know where that is," said
Edwin.
"Well, don't you think we'd better find them somehow?"