Although she said to herself that
it was bad manners, she shook out her handkerchief, which she had
herself starched and ironed with much care; and gathering her
skirts aside, first to the right and then to the left, dusted her
shoes, lifting each a little into the air, and she pulled some
grass from around the buttons. With the other half of her
handkerchief she wiped her brow; but a fresh bead of perspiration
instantly appeared; a few drops even stood on her dilated
nostrils--raindrops on the eaves. Even had the day been cool she
must have been warm, for she wore more layers of clothing than
usual, having deposited some fresh strata in honor of her wealthy
mother-in-law.
As Pansy stepped from behind the pines, with one long, quivering
breath of final self-adjustment, she suddenly stood still, arrested
by the vision of so glorious a hue and shape that, for the moment,
everything else was forgotten. On the pavement just before her, as
though to intercept her should she attempt to cross the Meredith
threshold, stood a peacock, expanding to the utmost its great fan
of pride and love. It confronted her with its high-born composure
and insolent grace, all its jewelled feathers flashing in the sun;
then with a little backward movement of its royal head and
convulsion of its breast, it threw out its cry,--the cry she had
heard in the distance through dreaming years,--warning all who
heard that she was there, the intruder. Then lowering its tail and
drawing its plumage in fastidiously against the body, it crossed
her path in an evasive circle and disappeared behind the pines.
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