Besides, Dick had two sides in his nature, almost as distinct as we sometimes observe in those persons who are the subjects of the condition known as double consciousness.  On his New England side he was cunning and calculating, always cautious, measuring his distance before he risked his stroke, as nicely as if he were throwing his lasso.  But he was liable to intercurrent fits of jealousy and rage, such as the light-hued races are hardly capable of conceiving, blinding paroxysms of passion, which for the time overmastered him, and which, if they found no ready outlet, transformed themselves into the more dangerous forces that worked through the instrumentality of his cool craftiness.

He had failed as yet in getting any positive evidence that there was any relation between Elsie and the schoolmaster other than such as might exist unsuspected and unblamed between a teacher and his pupil.  A book, or a note, even, did not prove the existence of any sentiment.  At one time he would be devoured by suspicions, at another he would try to laugh himself out of them.  And in the mean while he followed Elsie’s tastes as closely as he could, determined to make some impression upon her,—­to become a habit, a convenience, a necessity,—­whatever might aid him in the attainment of the one end which was now the aim of his life.

It was to humor one of her tastes already known to the reader, that he said to her one morning,—­“Come, Elsie, take your castanets, and let us have a dance.”

He had struck the right vein in the girl’s fancy, for she was in the mood for this exercise, and very willingly led the way into one of the more empty apartments.  What there was in this particular kind of dance which excited her it might not be easy to guess; but those who looked in with the old Doctor, on a former occasion, and saw her, will remember that she was strangely carried away by it, and became almost fearful in the vehemence of her passion.  The sound of the castanets seemed to make her alive all over.  Dick knew well enough what the exhibition would be, and was almost afraid of her at these moments; for it was like the dancing mania of Eastern devotees, more than the ordinary light amusement of joyous youth,—­a convulsion of the body and the mind, rather than a series of voluntary modulated motions.

Elsie rattled out the triple measure of a saraband.  Her eyes began to glitter more brilliantly, and her shape to undulate in freer curves.  Presently she noticed that Dick’s look was fixed upon her necklace.  His face betrayed his curiosity; he was intent on solving the question, why she always wore something about her neck.  The chain of mosaics she had on at that moment displaced itself at every step, and he was peering with malignant, searching eagerness to see if an unsunned ring of fairer hue than the rest of the surface, or any less easily explained peculiarity, were hidden by her ornaments.

She stopped suddenly, caught the chain of mosaics and settled it hastily in its place, flung down her castanets, drew herself back, and stood looking at him, with her head a little on one side, and her eyes narrowing in the way he had known so long and well.