Hyacinth and his companion took their seats with extreme promptitude before the curtain rose upon the Pearl of Paraguay. Thanks to Millicent’s eagerness not to be late they encountered the discomfort¹ which had constituted her main objection to going into the pit: they waited for twenty minutes at the door of the theatre, in a tight, stolid² crowd, before the official hour of opening. Millicent, bareheaded and very tightly laced, presented a most splendid appearance and, on Hyacinth’s part, gratified a certain youthful, ingenuous³ pride of possession in every respect save a tendency, while ingress was denied them, to make her neighbours feel her elbows and to comment, loudly and sarcastically⁴, on the situation. It was more clear to him even than it had been before that she was a young lady who in public places might easily need a champion or an apologist. Hyacinth knew there was only one way to apologise for a ‘female’, when the female was attached very closely and heavily to one’s arm, and was reminded afresh how little constitutional aversion Miss Henning had to a row. He had an idea she might think his own taste ran even too little in that direction, and had visions of violent, confused scenes, in which he should in some way distinguish himself : he scarcely knew in what way, and imagined himself more easily routing some hulking adversary⁵ by an exquisite⁶ application of the retort courteous⁷ than by flying at him with a pair of very small fists.

By the time they had reached their places in the balcony Millicent was rather flushed and a good deal ruffled⁸; but she had composed herself in season for the rising of the curtain upon the farce⁹ which preceded the

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