Page:Storm Over Paris.pdf/70

her and time stood still. A stealthy whispering and rustling that came from somewhere back of the walls kept her wide awake. The deeper she buried her head in the pillow the more the secret whispering twitched at her nerves. She covered her ears with her hands, but the strange rustling drilled into her very blood stream. Thoughts and fantasies, one more weird than the other, swept through her fevered imagination. Her body lay weak and helpless, inertly lending itself to the jumble of hallucinations. At last a dull pain in her back forced her to action. She got off the bed and turned on the light... The room was tidy and pleasant. But it was cold and strange for all that. And strange, too, were her own features, so queerly reflected in the polished mirror, gazing at her with an insane light. She turned away from the mirror, but the eyes seemed to grow in number, swarming about the room with a mad glare. Whose eyes are they?

Anna thought wildly. "Where have I seen them before? Oh, no, it's impossible! They're the eyes of Ida, mad Ida, the miller's daughter. No, Ida! I swear I'll not run around the streets like you, nor will I permit them to laugh at me. No women are going to gossip about me. Hot blood, they said, and I did not understand, but now I do, oh how I do! Have I forgotten that the chapter of girlhood was gone forever, that my bridal night was near, that my beloved was waiting for me...? If only my cursed fate hadn't put me in a room next to a pair of lovers! Maybe they're not in love at all."

She went to the window and pushed the curtains aside. "Maybe they were just-just coupling-because the mating season is here." Well, if that was the case, if it was only a question of a man, a man's body then why couldn't it be Yaska? Yaska was a good lad. Weren't Gertrude and Morris just dying to have her make a match with him? And after all, why not? A decent boy. A decent Jewish boy. Come,