New Britain herald., 1922-03-01
The Uneasy Feeling of Being Watched
 That Troubled Madgc.

There was something about the tall had just assisted me aboard the train that made me vaguely ill at ease,
 Thank you so much mur- mured, awkwardly enough. indeed, and walked or to my chair. which l Immediately swung facing the win dow.
 I think every woman has the intui- ton which tells her when a man is looking at her. and I was acuhely con- scious that the eyes of the elderly foreigner were watching my every movement I hastened to settle my self for the trip to the city with my purse, veil and gloves into my bag, that I might not mislay them during the journey, and then opening my favorite magazine I turned to the con- tinuation of a serial of which 1 had read the first instalments.
 But I could not fix my eyes on the printed page before me, for it seemed to me that eyes behind me, concealed by thick-lensed glasses, were boring into my back. It was a most eerie, uncomfortable feeling, and ] moved involuntarily in my seat and looked out of the window at the beautiful panorama of bay and stream and for est fitting past us.
 And then, for brief minute or two, the view outside was obscured by the long length of freight train, incl dentally transforming my window into . fairly good mirror. And in it I saw my intuition confirmed.
 Madge is Puzzled.
 The elderly foreigner was watch ing me intently. his thick-lensed glass es shielding his eyes from the sun rays which were playing over his fea- lures. He was quick. however. and unusually adroit, for as he caught my eyes in the mirrored window he dropped his own to the open book be- fore him. and remained in that at titude until we had cleared the freight train at last, and I could no longer see him.
 would have censured any other woman-indeed, I blame myself-for using the opportunity afforded me by the mirrored window and his averted gaze to study his appearance critically. But my curiosity and my imagination had been excited by his unusual ap- pearance, and his scrutiny of myself, and I confess it shamefacedly I frank ly stared at him until his image flashed out of my window-pane and the wonderful sunlit panorama out side came back.
 But l saw nothing of sunlight or sea. neither did I return to my maga- zine for miles With unseeing eyes summing up my impressions of the foreigner behind me.
 "Has Anything HAppened?"
 no longer employed the term elderly" in my mental inventory of him. That adjective had been an ad- junct of my cursory first impression of the man, born of his snowy hair and Vandyke beard. But I could clearly see that the skin below that snowy hair was firm and ruddy, that of a man in his late forties, and I guessed that the eyes concealed by the thick-lensed glasses were not in the least dimmed by age.
 There was no suspicion of disguise dDOuI ulUl, uOWCNSI. l COuIu IldNC taken an oath that his hair and beard were neither dyed nor false, and the glasses were those frequently used to correct certain defect of vision. But try as I might to banish the impress sion. to assure myself that I was the victim of an overwrought imagina- tion, I could not rid myself of the idea that somewhere l had met the man before, and that he was aware of my identity.
 ran over all the foreigners I ever had met. most of them acquaintances of Dicky's but not in all the list could I remember any one remotely re- sembling this man who was so intrigu- ing my imagination.
 And then common sense came to my rescue. and I berated myself soundly for the foolishness of which