But she did not grow pale perceptibly; she had
no involuntary or hysteric movements; she still listened to him and
smiled naturally enough. Perhaps she was only nervous at being stared
at. At any rate, she was coming under some unpleasant and unnatural
influence or other, and Mr. Bernard had seen enough of the strange
impression Elsie sometimes produced to wish this young girl to be
relieved from it, whatever it was. He turned toward Elsie and looked at
her in such a way as to draw her eyes upon him. Then he looked steadily
and calmly into them. It was a great effort, for some perfectly
inexplicable reason. At one instant he thought he could not sit where he
was; he must go and speak to Elsie. Then he wanted to take his eyes away
from hers; there was something intolerable in the light that came from
them. But he was determined to look her down, and he believed he could
do it, for he had seen her countenance change more than once when he had
caught her gaze steadily fixed on him. All this took not minutes, but
seconds. Presently she changed color slightly,--lifted her head, which
was inclined a little to one side,--shut and opened her eyes two or
three times, as if they had been pained or wearied,--and turned away
baffled, and shamed, as it would seem, and shorn for the time of her
singular and formidable or at least evil-natured power of swaying the
impulses of those around her.
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