She pressed close into her corner, and spasmodically stared out of the window, where the illuminated interior of the coach was reproduced on the black background as in a dark mirror.
Thus she could observe the stranger quietly, without his catching her in an occasional raising of her lids.
The light of the ceiling lamp sharply lit up his smooth, soft cheeks, whose even sheen merged into bluish darkness at the temple, a cheek formed for pressure and petting. To let your hand stray over it gently must be a great delight.
And what long, dark lashes he had, longer than her own. Their shadow formed dark semicircles reaching to the finely cut nostrils.
Suddenly he raised his eyes and looked at her.
There it was again, that black-diamond, caressing gleam, cold, yet how seductive!
She started in fright, and grew still more frightened at the thought that he might have noticed her fear.
He smiled a very, very faint smile and continued to read.
Her fancy wove more and more anxious, flattering thoughts about him, thoughts tantamount to a crime, which weighed upon her like a nightmare of which she could not rid herself.
Suddenly--an icy stream poured over her heart--she felt a soft, tender pressure on her left foot, which she must have moved nearer to the centre quite involuntarily, for only a short time before it had been close against her right foot, and her right foot touched the outer wall of the compartment.
A rebuking "I beg pardon!" an angry flaring up, would have roused the colonel and given occasion again for suspicion, perhaps even for an encounter. So she slowly withdrew her foot, using the utmost caution, and pressed it against the wall to prove to herself she had rescued it.
But those few moments of hesitation, she knew it well, had made her _particeps criminis_, and this consciousness tormented her as the thought tantamount to a crime, which she had permitted to obsess her before.
Dishonoured, besmirched, she seemed to herself, a prey to each and any man that waylaid her path.
Why find fault with him? The thing he had impudently desired, was it not the fulfillment of her own impure wishes?
This notion fairly stifled her. She wanted to jump up, cry aloud, and beg for forgiveness. The stranger continued to read quietly, as if nothing had occurred.