Beyond a few forced
remarks to Stanton and Miss Burton, he made a show of eating his
supper in silence. But he longed to escape from his present ordeal,
and resolved to leave the table as soon as appearances permitted.
One thing in Ida's manner perplexed him greatly. She now looked
at him as if he were an object, scrupling not to meet his eye with
her strange, unwavering gaze. There was nothing of the haughty
indifference which she had manifested the evening before in her
occasional glances. She rather looked as one who is trying to fix
an object in his memory that he may carry an accurate picture of
it away with him.
The thought crossed his mind more than once, "We have wakened our
Undine's sleeping mind with a vengeance, but have jostled it so
rudely that I fear the frail article is hopelessly shattered."
Miss Burton tried once more to make the conversation general, but
her effort ended rather disastrously.
"Mr. Van Berg," she said, "I've been reading an essay this afternoon
in which the writer tries to prove that science has done more for
humanity than art and religion combined. Now I suppose you would
be inclined to take the same ground in regard to art that I ought
in respect to religion.
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