smoke-like vagueness and rapidity. He had the queerest fancy that she
looked somehow scared,--but of course that was preposterous.

"Your call," she told them both, "happens to fall on a day which marks a
turning-point in our family life. This is the very first day in ten
years, since Paul's birth, that I have not had at least one of the
children beside me. Today is the opening of spring term in our country
school, and my little Mark went off this morning, for the first time,
with his brother and sister. I have been alone until you came." She
stopped for a moment. Mr. Welles wished that Vincent could get over his
habit of staring at people so. She went on, "I have felt very queer
indeed, all day. It's as though . . . you know, when you have been walking
up and up a long flight of stairs, and you go automatically putting one
foot up and then the other, and then suddenly . . . your upraised foot
falls back with a jar. You've come to the top, and, for an instant, you
have a gone feeling without your stairs to climb."

It occurred to Mr. Welles that really perhaps the reason why some nice
ladies did not like Vincent was just because of his habit of looking at
them so hard. He could have no idea how piercingly bright his eyes
looked when he fixed them on a speaker like that. And now Mrs.
Crittenden was looking back at him, and would notice it. _He_ could
understand how a refined lady would feel as though somebody were almost
trying to find a key-hole to look in at her,--to have anybody pounce on
her so, with his eyes, as Vincent did. She couldn't know, of course,
that Vincent went pouncing on ladies and baggagemen and office boys, and
old friends, just the same way. He bestirred himself to think of
something to say. "I wish I could get up my nerve to ask you, Mrs.
Crittenden, about one other person in this house," he ventured, "the old
woman . . . the old lady . . . who let us in the door."