The healthful and normal minds of those about her grew vaguely
conscious of another mind that had been deeply moved, shaken to
its foundations, and so had become almost abnormal and dangerous
in its impulses.
There is a very general tendency both to observe and to shrink
from that which is unnatural, and if the departure from what is
customary is shown in unexpected and unusual mental action, the
stronger become the uneasiness and dread in those who witness it.
All who saw Ida recognized that she was not only unlike herself,
but unlike any one in an ordinary state of mind, and people who were
intimate looked at each other significantly, as if to ask--"What
is the matter with Miss Mayhew? What is the matter with us all?"
Were it not that the maiden occasionally turned a leaf, in order
to keep up the illusion that she was reading, she might have been
a statue, so motionless was her form, and so pallid her face.
But she felt that she was perplexing and troubling those who had
wounded her, and the consciousness gave secret satisfaction. Her
past experience taught her to appreciate stage effect, and, since
she meditated a tragedy, she proposed that everything should be as
tragic and blood-curdling as possible.
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