A half turn of my head was enough. He sat facing the
Klondike woman. As I again turned a bit I saw that under cover of her
animated converse with her table companions she was at intervals
allowing her very effective eyes to rest, as if absently, upon him. I
may say now that a curious chill seized me, bringing with it a sudden
psychic warning that all was not going to be as it should be. Some
calamity impended. The man was quite apparently fascinated, staring
with a fixed, hypnotic intensity that had already been noted by his
companions on either side.
With a word about the soup, shot quickly and directly at him, I
managed to divert his gaze, but his eyes had returned even before the
spoon had gone once to his lips. The second time there was a soup
stain upon his already rumpled shirt front. Presently it became only
too horribly certain that the man was out of himself, for when the
fish course was served he remained serenely unconscious that none of
the lobster sauce accompanied his own portion. It was a rich sauce,
and the almost immediate effect of shell-fish upon his complexion
being only too well known to me, I had directed that his fish should
be served without it, though I had fully expected him to row me for it
and perhaps create a scene.
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