She looked more like Charlotte
Corday!
I had the pleasure of seeing her opposite me at lunch the next day (when
Mr. Dowden kept me occupied with Spencerville politics, obviously from
fear that I would break out again), but no stroll in the yard with her
rewarded me afterward, as I dimly hoped, for she disappeared before I
left the table, and I did not see her again for a fortnight. On
week-days she did not return to the house for lunch, my only meal at
Mrs. Apperthwaite's (I dined at a restaurant near the "Despatch"
office), and she was out of town for a little visit, her mother informed
us, over the following Saturday and Sunday. She was not altogether out
of my thoughts, however--indeed, she almost divided them with the
Honorable David Beasley.
A better view which I was afforded of this gentleman did not lessen my
interest in him; increased it rather; it also served to make the
extraordinary didoes of which he had been the virtuoso and I the
audience more than ever profoundly inexplicable. My glimpse of him in
the lighted doorway had given me the vaguest impression of his
appearance, but one afternoon--a few days after my interview with Miss
Apperthwaite--I was starting for the office and met him full-face-on as
he was turning in at his gate. I took as careful invoice of him as I
could without conspicuously glaring.
There was something remarkably "taking," as we say, about this
man--something easy and genial and quizzical and careless.
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