They were withdrawn at once, and she passed on with
the slightest of frowns--just sufficient rebuke to the person who had
forgotten himself so far as to stare at a woman in a public place. The
maid, too, glanced towards me with a slight flash in her large black
eyes, as though she, also, resented my impertinence, and the little
Japanese spaniel yawned as he was carried past, and showed me a set of
dazzling white teeth. I was in disgrace all round, because I had looked
for a second too long into his mistress' deep blue eyes and pale, proud
face. Nevertheless, I presumed even further. I changed my position, so
that I could see her where she stood in the hall, talking to her maid.
Like a man who looks half unwillingly into the land of hidden things,
knowing very well that his own doom or joy is there, if he has the wit to
see and the strength to grasp it, so did I deliberately falsify the
tenets and obligations of my order, and, standing half in the hall, half
in the office, I stared at the lady and the maid and the spaniel. She was
younger even than I had thought her, and I felt that there was something
foreign in her appearance, although of what nationality she might be I
could not determine.
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