Her high
heels had left deep, dear-cut imprints in a small patch of damp,
sandy ground near the veranda.
This physical trace of her person fascinated me. It was a trace of
stern hostility, yet I could not keep my eye away from it. I gazed
and gazed at those foot-prints of hers till I seemed to be growing
stupid and dizzy. "Am I losing my head?" I said to myself. "Am I
obsessed? Why, I saw her yesterday for the first time and I have
scarcely spoken to her. What the devil is the matter with me?"
After breakfast we returned to the veranda. The jewelry-dealer and
the lawyer bored me unmercifully. Finally I was saved from them
by the arrival of the Sunday papers, but my reading was soon
disturbed by the intrusions of a mother and her marriageable
daughter. There was no escape. I had to lay down my paper and
let them torture me. There was a striking family resemblance
between the two, yet the daughter was as homely as the mother
was pretty. "She isn't as prepossessing as her ma, of course," the
older woman seemed to be saying to me, "but she's charming, all
the same, isn't she?"
Miss Lazar was watching me at a respectful distance.
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