Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/361

Rh their established, intimate friends,—her own, as well as Susan's. And she absolutely compelled poor Mrs. Balloure's continual presence with her husband on all occasions of special festivity, until the poor woman relaxed a little from her rigid severity, and became, as Susan ungenerously remarked one day, "a little less like the death's head at the banquet."

Susan's own manner to the professor baffled Bell's utmost scrutiny; it was always open as day always affectionate; always reverential; but there was a look now in her eyes when they rested on his face which made Bell uneasy. It was a groping, questioning look, as if she were feeling her way in the dark; it was a great change from Susan's old child-like trust. Edward Balloure himself felt this, and was more disconcerted by it than he would have been by any form of direct and distrustful inquiry. It put him perpetually on his guard; led him to be always discreet, even in his closest and most intimate moments with Susan: much more discreet than he would otherwise have been; for day by day, Edward Balloure was learning to love Susan Sweetser more and more warmly. The vague remoteness in which she held herself; the strange charm of mingled reverence and doubt, affection and withdrawal in her manner toward him, held him under a spell which no other woman could have woven. She was an endlessly interesting study to him, and that is the strongest fascination which one human being can possess for another.