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 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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