He must come into closer relations with
her, so as to withdraw her thoughts from this fellow, and to find out
more exactly what was the state of her affections, if she had any. So he
began to court her company again, to propose riding with her, to sing to
her, to join her whenever she was strolling about the grounds, to make
himself agreeable, according to the ordinary understanding of that
phrase, in every way which seemed to promise a chance for succeeding in
that amiable effort.
The girl treated him more capriciously than ever. She would be sullen
and silent, or she would draw back fiercely at some harmless word or
gesture, or she would look at him with her eyes narrowed in such a
strange way and with such a wicked light in them that Dick swore to
himself they were too much for him, and would leave her for the moment.
Yet she tolerated him, almost as a matter of necessity, and sometimes
seemed to take a kind of pleasure in trying her power upon him. This he
soon found out, and humored her in the fancy that she could exercise a
kind of fascination over him, though there were times in which he
actually felt an influence he could not understand, an effect of some
peculiar expression about her, perhaps, but still centring in those
diamond eyes of hers which it made one feel so curiously to look into.
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