Completely possessed by his mood he was too much the man to have the power to see that her mood was different. Holding her tightly, he said: "I do believe you acted that way this evening just to make me jealous. I admit I seem neglectful. But I love you, just as I always did."
She was struggling to escape as strongly as she dared—more strongly than her instinct of prudence approved—more strongly than her physical self desired, for she realized with horror that his mood was hypnotizing her will.
"Listen, dear," he said. "I've got a confession to make. While I was raging up and down on the veranda, all sorts of devilish thoughts came to me—suspicious——"
She ceased struggling.
"I got to thinking how long we've been living apart—and how, every time I made advances, you seemed to evade——"
She felt herself growing cold. He must have felt it, too, for he hastened on: "Please, little girl, don't get cross. I didn't really suspect. I'm not so ridiculous. I know a good woman could no more be false even in thought to her husband—than a nightingale could change into a snake."
It was pounding, pounding at the walls of her brain that he was on the very verge of the discovery; that unconsciously he was fighting against a suspicion which too long-pent passion was thrusting at him ever more pointedly. Another repulse, another jealous fit, and—five lives overwhelmed in ruin.
She lay quiet in his arms.
In those next few days she was whimsical, capricious, fantastic. Richard, once more wholly the man of science, was as unconscious as mountain peak of storms in the valleys far below. Basil and the others, but particularly Basil, watched her with a kind of dread. "I need a change—in fact, I must have it," she announced at the supper table. "Helen, let's go to Chicago and shop. The things in Wenona are hideous this spring."
"I need a change too," Richard startled them all by saying, "I'll go with you—and Helen can take care of the house and Basil—and Winchie, if you'll leave him."