Mrs. Shawn turned to seek another route, but already dozens of women
were upon her, and she could not retire. The crowd of candidates for
admission to the blouse department swelled till it filled the gallery
between that department and its neighbour. Then someone cried out for
air, and someone else protested that the doors at the other end of the
short gallery had also been shut. Lily, whose manifold misfortunes had
not quenched her interest in the 'Incroyable' corset, opened her parcel,
and found that the corset was not an 'Incroyable' at all, but an
inferior substitute, with no proper belted band, and of a shape to
startle even a Brighton bathing-woman! The change must have been
effected by the assistant in making up the parcel.
'Well!'
She could say no more, and think no more, than this 'Well!'
And, moreover, the condition of the packed gallery soon caused her to
forget even the final swindle of the corset. The air had rapidly become
exhausted. Women clutched at each other; women rapped frenziedly against
the heavy, glazed doors; women screamed. It was the Black Hole of
Calcutta over again, and yet no one in the blouse department seemed to
notice the signals of distress. Lily felt the perspiration on her brow
and chin, and then she knew that she, too, must scream and clutch; and
she cried out, and the pressure which forced her against the door grew
more and more terrible.
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