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Rh down with a motion full of elegance and grace, to read the title of the book he is perusing. And all the time I know that the other's cold glance is fixed on me.

"You have changed very considerably during the vacation, Miss Dernowicz," Roslawski says to me, in an undertone audible in the quiet room.

"Have I?" This I say with a smile, raising my head.

"Yes, you seem taller now, and more like a 'grown-up.' Last year there was still something of the schoolgirl in your appearance."

I protest, laughingly, and try to talk with Smilowicz. But instead of listening to him, I am thinking.

Roslawski is to my mind not so much a man as a mechanical power, something of a nature that is hostile and full of hatred; something dangerous; a mesmeric influence. This tall, well-dressed, well-informed gentleman in glasses is not to my mind a living man: rather a sort of abstract idea. At times I can scarce believe him to have any personal existence at all.

I have somehow the impression that I am standing upon a railway track, in a whirlwind