Never before had he been so impressed by her beauty,and yet there was an element in it which made him shiver with a dread he could not explain to himself.He was surprised and shocked to find how pale and wan her face had become,but in every severe marble curve of her features he saw the word,"Misjudged."He could scarcely recognize her as the blooming girl that he had first seen in the concert garden.Suffering,trouble of mind,was evidently the dark magician that was thus transforming her;but why did she suffer so deeply?As she sat there before him,not only his deeper instincts,but his reason refused almost indignantly to associate her any longer with Sibley.There was a time when she seemed akin to him;but now she suggested deep trouble,despair,death even,rather than a gross "bon vivant."Was she ill!Yes,evidently,but he doubted if her malady had physical causes.
"What a very strange toilet she has made!"he thought;"simple and plain to the last degree,and yet singularly effective and striking.
Her fingers were once loaded with rings,but she has taken them all off,and now her hands are as perfect as her features.She does not wear a single ornament,save those ominous poniards.Does she mean to signify by these that she is wounded,or that she proposes to inflict wounds?Ye gods!how strangely,terribly,exasperatingly beautiful she is!I have certainly both misjudged and misunderstood her."These thoughts passed through his mind as he stole an occasional glance at their object,who sat with her profile towards him almost in the line of his vision.At the same time he was apparently listening to a prosy and interminable story from one of the group of which he was a member.They had been telling anecdotes of travel,and the last speaker's experience was,like his journey,long and uninteresting.
Van Berg soon observed that many others besides himself were observing Miss Mayhew.She seemed to fascinate,perplex,and trouble all who looked towards her.The singular beauty and striking toilet might account,in part,for the lingering glances,but not for the perplexity and uneasiness they caused.If Ida had been dead her features could not have been more colorless;and they had a stern,hard,desperate expression that was sadly out of harmony with what should be the appearance of a happy young girl.
Her presence seemed to cause an increasing chill and restraint.
The healthful and normal minds of those about her grew vaguely conscious of another mind that had been deeply moved,shaken to its foundations,and so had become almost abnormal and dangerous in its impulses.
There is a very general tendency both to observe and to shrink from that which is unnatural,and if the departure from what is customary is shown in unexpected and unusual mental action,the stronger become the uneasiness and dread in those who witness it.
All who saw Ida recognized that she was not only unlike herself,but unlike any one in an ordinary state of mind,and people who were intimate looked at each other significantly,as if to ask--"What is the matter with Miss Mayhew?What is the matter with us all?"Were it not that the maiden occasionally turned a leaf,in order to keep up the illusion that she was reading,she might have been a statue,so motionless was her form,and so pallid her face.
But she felt that she was perplexing and troubling those who had wounded her,and the consciousness gave secret satisfaction.Her past experience taught her to appreciate stage effect,and,since she meditated a tragedy,she proposed that everything should be as tragic and blood-curdling as possible.
There is usually but a short step between high tragedy and painful absurdity,which exasperates us while we laugh at it;but poor Ida's thoughts were so desperately dark and despairing,and her exquisite features,made almost transparent by grief and fasting,so perfectly interpreted her unfeigned wretchedness,that even those who knew her but slightly were touched and troubled in a way that they could not explain even to themselves.
Miss Burton was evidently meditating how she could approach Ida,who seemed encased in a repellant atmosphere.Van Berg saw that Stanton looked anxious and perplexed,and that Mrs.Mayhew was exceedingly worried and annoyed.At last he hastily approached her daughter and whispered,"For heaven's sake,Ida,what's the matter?You look as if you had gone into mourning."The young lady glanced coldly up and said stonily:
"You have at least taught me to dress appropriately.""Nonsense,"continued the mother,in a low,irritable tone."Why can't you cheer up and act like other people?Don't you see you're giving us all the shivers?"She slowly swept the room with her eyes,and saw that not a few curious glances were directed towards her.Then,with bowed head,she glided from the room without a word.
Miss Burton caught up with her in the hall-way."You are ill,Miss Mayhew,"she said,with gentle solicitude.
"Yes,"Ida replied,in the same stony,repellant manner;"but you are not a physician,Miss Burton.Good evening."And she went swiftly up to her own room,as if determined to speak with no one else that evening.