At these moments if I abruptly changed the theme--I did
it several times as an experiment--and dropped some remark about my
friend Flemming, then the sombre blue eyes would come back to me
instantly.
Now, is not this the oddest thing in the world? No, not the oddest.
The effect which you tell me was produced on you by my casual
mention of an unknown girl swinging in a hammock is certainly as
strange. You can conjecture how that passage in your letter of
Friday startled me. Is it possible, than, that two people who have
never met, and who are hundreds of miles apart, can exert a
magnetic influence on each other? I have read of such psychological
phenomena, but never credited them. I leave the solution of the
problem to you. As for myself, all other things being favorable, it
would be impossible for me to fall in love with a woman who listens
to me only when I am talking of my friend!
I am not aware that any one is paying marked attention to my fair
neighbor. The lieutenant of the navy--he is stationed at Rivermouth
--sometimes drops in of an evening, and sometimes the rector from
Stillwater; the lieutenant the oftener. He was there last night. I
should not be surprised if he had an eye to the heiress; but he is
not formidable. Mistress Daw carries a neat little spear of irony,
and the honest lieutenant seems to have a particular facility for
impaling himself on the point of it.
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