His eye wandered over the
company, none of whom, excepting myself and one other, had, probably,
noticed the movement. They fell at last on Iris,--his next neighbor, you
remember.
--We know in a moment, on looking suddenly at a person, if that person's
eyes have been fixed on us.
Sometimes we are conscious of it before we turn so as to see the person.
Strange secrets of curiosity, of impertinence, of malice, of love, leak
out in this way. There is no need of Mrs. Felix Lorraine's reflection in
the mirror, to tell us that she is plotting evil for us behind our backs.
We know it, as we know by the ominous stillness of a child that some
mischief or other is going-on. A young girl betrays, in a moment, that
her eyes have been feeding on the face where you find them fixed, and
not merely brushing over it with their pencils of blue or brown light.
A certain involuntary adjustment assimilates us, you may also observe, to
that upon which we look. Roses redden the cheeks of her who stoops to
gather them, and buttercups turn little people's chins yellow.
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