Satan, too, asked himself questions through that day.
A far busier leader than any king or president of Earth, since he had the evil of all nations to direct, he yet found time from his activities to remember the boomerang blow to himself of last night’s “show.”
His chamber of state glowed as with St. Elmo’s fire, while he lightning-flashed his orders through infinity, defying the “static” of Earth and Heaven and the void between. Piteously he drove his Minions of Malice toward the consummation of crimes unique or foul enough to merit his supervision. No measurement exists to compute the watts of energy required to transmit the royal will in this orgy of action. But what did he care that the Gehennan sun was dimmed by the draught until it looked a mere balloon?
As the artificial daylight went into eclipse, greener grew the color of the Satanic mood—a hard green, mixed from the yellow of chagrin and the blue-black of rage. He felt as mean as a son-in-law. It did not help in the slightest to have Old Original commiserate him on the projection of a picture which had shown his rival running true; no more did that unworthy’s impious request that he be appointed royal previewer of all future films. Even the minister’s report on the entire success of a particularly contemptible political coup which he had devised for the postponement of that good will toward men threatened in the “Little Book” did not long divert him.
At length, consigning the rest of the day’s deviltry to various fiend aides, the Author of Evil forced his mind to concentrate on the vital question evolved from last night. How best might mortal pusillanimity be revealed to the rose-goggled eyes of true love?
Through the mood which he had been suffering since the fiasco of his “evening out,” he recognized violent tendencies within himself which made him feel, more than ever before, his power to devise and inflict suffering. In this case, however, violence would not do; would destroy what he wished to create. With meticulous delicacy he must handle this mind feminine if he hoped to pluck therefrom its dearest idealization.
What can the heart of woman not forgive? He asked himself and considered, one by one, many answers.
“I never could forgive infidelity!”
At that loudest and oftenest cry of the wives of the world the malignant lips curled. “Never?” Yet most did forgive who found it advisable so to do.