CHAPTER VI.
VICTOR HUGO AND ISAAC PITMAN I The next morning, Saturday, Hilda ran no risk in visiting Mr.Cannon.
Her mother's cold, after a fictitious improvement, had assumed an aggravated form in order to prove that not with impunity may nature be flouted in unheated October drawing-rooms; and Hilda had been requested to go to market alone.

She was free.

And even supposing that the visit should be observed by the curious, nobody would attach any importance to it, because everybody would soon be aware that Mr.Cannon had assumed charge of the Calder Street property.
Past the brass plates of Mr.Q.Karkeek, out of the straw-littered hubbub of the market-place, she climbed the long flight of stairs leading to the offices on the first floor.

In one worsted-gloved hand she held a market-basket of multi-coloured wicker, which dangled a little below the frilled and flounced edge of her blue jacket.

Secure in the pocket of her valanced brown skirt--for at that time and in that place it had not yet occurred to any woman that pockets were a superfluity--a private half-sovereign lay in the inmost compartment of her purse; this coin was destined to recompense Mr.Cannon.Her free hand went up to the heavy chignon that hung uncertainly beneath her bonnet--a gesture of coquetry which she told herself she despised.
Her face was a prim and rather forbidding mask, assuredly a mysterious mask.