singular, piercing eye he had! It made her a little restive, as at a
too-intimate contact, to be looked at so intently, although she was
quite aware that there was a good deal of admiration in the look. She
wondered what he was thinking about her; for it was evident that he was
thinking about her, as he sent out that penetrating gaze.

But perhaps not, after all; for he now said as if in answer to her last
remark, "I have my own way of believing that, too, that all people are
made of the same stuff. Mostly I find them perfectly negligible, too
utterly without savor even to glance at. Once in a thousand years, it
seems to me, you come across a human being who's alive as you are, who
speaks your language, is your own kind, belongs to you. When you do,
good Lord! What a moment!"

He pronounced this in a perfectly impersonal tone, but something about
the quality of his voice made Marise flash a quick glance at him. His
eyes met hers with a sudden, bold deepening of their gaze. Marise's
first impulse was to be startled and displeased, but in an instant a
quick fear of being ridiculous had voiced itself and was saying to her,
"Don't be countrified. It's only that I've had no contact with
people-of-the-world for a year now. That's the sort of thing they get
their amusement from. It would make him laugh to have it resented."
Aloud she said, rather at random, "I usually go down once a season to
the city for a visit to this old friend of mine, and other friends
there. But this last winter I didn't get up the energy to do that."

"I should think," said Mr. Welles, "that last winter you'd have used up
all your energy on other things, from what Mrs. Powers tells me about
the big chorus you always lead here in winters."