Zenobia was conscious of my observation, though not, I presume, of the
point to which it led me.
"Mr. Coverdale," said she one day, as she saw me watching her, while
she arranged my gruel on the table, "I have been exposed to a great
deal of eye-shot in the few years of my mixing in the world, but never,
I think, to precisely such glances as you are in the habit of favoring
me with. I seem to interest you very much; and yet--or else a woman's
instinct is for once deceived--I cannot reckon you as an admirer. What
are you seeking to discover in me?"
"The mystery of your life," answered I, surprised into the truth by the
unexpectedness of her attack. "And you will never tell me."
She bent her head towards me, and let me look into her eyes, as if
challenging me to drop a plummet-line down into the depths of her
consciousness.
"I see nothing now," said I, closing my own eyes, "unless it be the
face of a sprite laughing at me from the bottom of a deep well."
A bachelor always feels himself defrauded, when he knows or suspects
that any woman of his acquaintance has given herself away. Otherwise,
the matter could have been no concern of mine. It was purely
speculative, for I should not, under any circumstances, have fallen in
love with Zenobia. The riddle made me so nervous, however, in my
sensitive condition of mind and body, that I most ungratefully began to
wish that she would let me alone. Then, too, her gruel was very
wretched stuff, with almost invariably the smell of pine smoke upon it,
like the evil taste that is said to mix itself up with a witch's best
concocted dainties. Why could not she have allowed one of the other
women to take the gruel in charge? Whatever else might be her gifts,
Nature certainly never intended Zenobia for a cook. Or, if so, she
should have meddled only with the richest and spiciest dishes, and such
as are to be tasted at banquets, between draughts of intoxicating wine.