The change in Richard came rapidly, yet was so gradual that its cause escaped them all. It is not in human nature to be inexhaustibly patient even with the vagaries of an obvious invalid. Where the illness is unsuspected, patience with its victim soon turns to gall. This new development in Richard's character—for Courtney and all the others assumed it was character—changed her passive, almost unsuspected resentment and indifference into dislike that could easily deepen into aversion.
He was disagreeably reminding her of his existence; he was saying in effect "Look at me!" She looked. She had bowed to fate, had accepted a loveless life of duty. She had done her part loyally. She had made a home, had kept it in order, had submitted whenever his physical necessities began to distract him from his work. Yes, she had accepted all the degradation without a murmur. And when love had come to her unsought, had tempted her, she had put the temptation aside. In order that his plans might not be upset, she had taken the hard instead of the easy way to combat this temptation, had let Basil Gallatin stay on. And what was her reward? Whenever Richard spoke, it was to say something disagreeable, to be as nearly insulting as a well-bred man could become.
"It's perhaps fortunate for Richard," reflected she, "that Basil showed the true nature of his love in that trip to Pittsburg. For what do I owe Richard Vaughan? Is there any woman anywhere who does not in her heart feel she'd be justified in doing anything, when her husband has treated her as mine has treated me?" And the obvious answer—that her husband was the normal husband, that it was she who, expecting what the conventional and customary marriage relation did not contemplate and did not provide, was in the wrong—this answer seemed to her no answer at all, but an insult to her intelligence and her self-respect.
Because of Vaughan's rages Gallatin got into the habit of rising from the table as soon as he finished and leaving the Vaughans to themselves. Courtney, with the sex charm subtly seducing her to seek and exaggerate merits in Basil, was deeply moved by this thoughtfulness; for it increased her humiliation to have him there when Richard lost control of himself. One evening, as they finished supper, Vaughan was suddenly infuriated by the stealthy fiend of indigestion that is the chief cause of humanity's faults of temperament, from morbidness to acute mania. He burst out at Gallatin—sprang from absent-mindedness with flaming eyes like a madman from ambush. "You messed everything to-day!" cried this unsuspected and unconscious invalid, sicker far than many a one in bed with doctors and nurses. "You simply raised the devil. Another day or so like it, and I'll not let you come into the shop."
Gallatin made no reply.
"I suppose you're cursing me," fumed Richard. "That's the way it always is. The whole world's mad on the subject of self-excuse. Somebody else is always to blame, and criticism is always an outrage."
"Not at all," said Gallatin, and Courtney knew his self-control was wholly for her sake. "I was stupid to-day, Vaughan. It was wholly my fault. I know I came near blowing up the shop and sending us both to kingdom come——"
An exclamation of terror from Courtney halted him. She was pale, was looking with frightened, questioning eyes from one man to the other.
Vaughan blazed again. "There you go!" cried he to Gallatin. "Now, she'll think I'm at something as dangerous as a powder factory—when, in fact——"
"Yes, indeed, Mrs. Vaughan," interrupted Gallatin. "It was my stupidity that made all the danger. Really, we do nothing that ought to be dangerous."