He slept an hour and a half, then Pauline brought him a cup of beef extract—"A very small cup," he grumbled good-humoredly. "And a very weak, watery mess in it."
As he lay propped in his bed drinking it—slowly to make it last the longer—Pauline sat looking at him. His hands had been fat and puffy; she was filled with pity as she watched the almost scrawny hand holding the cup to his lips; there were hollows between the tendons, and the wrist was gaunt. Her gaze wandered to his face and rested there, in sympathy and tenderness. The ravages of the fever had been frightful—hollows where the swollen, sensual cheeks had been; the neck caved in behind and under the jaw-bones; loose skin hanging in wattles, deeply-set eyes, a pinched look about the nostrils and the corners of the mouth. He was homely, ugly even; except the noble curve of head and profile, not a trace of his former good looks—but at least that swinish, fleshy, fleshly expression was gone.
A physical wreck, battered, torn, dismantled by the storm and fire of disease! It was hard for her to keep back her tears.
Their eyes met and his instantly shifted. The rest of the world saw the man of force bent upon the possessions which mean fame and honor regardless of how they are got. He knew that he could deceive the world, that so long as he was rich and powerful it would refuse to let him undeceive it, though he might strive to show it what he was. But he knew that SHE saw him as he really was—knew him as only a husband and a wife can know each the other. And he respected her for the qualities which gave her a right to despise him, and which had forced her to exercise that right. He felt himself the superior of the rest of his fellow-beings, but her inferior; did she not successfully defy him; could she not, without a word, by simply resting her calm gaze upon him, make him shift and slink?
He felt that he must change the subject—not of their conversation, for they were not talking, but of their—her—thoughts. He did not know precisely what she was thinking of him, but he was certain that it was not anything favorable how could it be? In fact, fight though she did against the thought, into her mind as she looked, pitying yet shrinking, came his likeness to a wolf—starved and sick and gaunt, by weakness tamed into surface restraint, but in vicious teeth, in savage lips, in jaw made to crush for love of crushing, a wicked wolf, impatient to resume the life of the beast of prey.
By a mischance unavoidable in a mind filled as was his he began to tell of his revenge—of the exhibition of power he purposed to give, sudden and terrible. He talked of his enemies as a cat might of a mouse it was teasing in the impassable circle of its paws. She felt that they deserved the thunderbolt he said he was about to hurl into them, but she could not help feeling pity for them. If what he said of his resources and power were true, how feeble, how helpless they were—pygmies fatuously disporting themselves in the palm of a giant's hand, unconscious of where they were, of the cruel eyes laughing at them, of the iron muscles that would presently contract that hand and—she shuddered; his voice came to her in a confused murmur.
"If he does not stop I shall loathe him AGAIN!" she said to herself. Then to him: "Perhaps you'd like to see Langdon—he's in the drawing-room with Gladys."
"I sent for him two hours ago. Yes, tell him to come up at once."
As she took the cup he detained her hand. She beat down the impulse to snatch it away, let it lie passive. He pressed his lips upon it.
"I haven't thanked you for coming back," he said in a low voice, holding to her hand nervously.