Enraged and dripping, he leaped up with sudden strength, and started for the bedroom, spluttering incoherent expostulations as he went.
At that moment there was heard the sound of a latch-key, and a grinning black face appeared.
"Good mawnin', sah. Somefin' seems to be spilt heah."
Fetching a large cloth, she set to work with easy dexterity.
Mr. Brush, fascinated, watched the lake disappear.
"You bes' get dress', sah. Ah'll have yo' breakfas' ready in a couple o' minutes."
"Thank Heaven you're here, Maria!" he said fervently. "I was almost afraid you weren't coming."
Mildred congratulated herself on having conquered her timidity. She had come all the way down-town by herself, had looked through several stores until she found just the curtains she wanted; and now, ready to return home, she got on the 'bus as calmly as though she had been a New Yorker and a married woman all her life.
It being the rush hour of the afternoon, the conveyance was quite crowded. Mildred thought at first that she would have to sit on the backward-facing bench up front, which she disliked; but luckily she found a place on one of the seats opposite it. A moment later even the less-desirable bench was occupied.
The person who took the place on it directly facing her was a tall, dark man of about forty, with piercing black eyes and an aquiline nose. Mildred kept encountering his glance. There was something about it that disturbed her. She flushed a little.
His face seemed vaguely, uncomfortably familiar. Where had she seen him before? She was sure he wasn't anyone who had waited on her in a shop, nor any of the tradesmen who came to the door of her apartment: he looked too much the man of the world for that. Neither was he one of the few friends of her husband whom she had had a chance to meet. She could not place him. Happiness, and the absorption that goes with it, had made her oblivious of outside things.
Whoever he was, his glances rendered her more and more ill at ease. She looked out of the window, she looked up at the advertisements, she looked down at her lap. No use: she could _feel_ his gaze.
In vain did she reason with herself that he was not staring at her intentionally, but was merely directing his eyes straight ahead of him, as anyone might do. No; not even the protecting presence of the other passengers could reassure her. She felt almost as though she and the hawk-like stranger were alone in the conveyance.