PART II.
I.
To those that have suffered certain things there are forms of entertainment which neither amuse nor bore, but which pain. And this evening, as Justine sat in the stalls, the play which was being given, and which, as plays go, was endurable enough, caused her no pleasure, no weariness even, only a longing to get away and be alone. Now and then a shudder visited her, her hand tightened on her fan, and at times she would close her eyes, dull her hearing, and try to fancy that her girlhood was recovered, that she was free again, that she was dead, that her husband was—anything imaginable in fact, save the knowledge that she was there, side-by-side with him, and that presently they would return together to the hideousness of their uptown flat.
She had been married now a little more than two years, and during the latter portion of that time life had held for her that precise dose of misery which is just insufficient to produce uncertainties of thought in a mind naturally exalted. There had indeed been moments in which the possibility of insanity had presented itself, and there had been moments also in which she would have welcomed that possibility as a grateful release: but those moments had passed, the possibility with them; and this evening as she sat in the stalls her outward appearance was much such as it had been two years before. But within, where her heart had been, was a cemetery.
Among our friends and acquaintances there are always those who to our knowledge have tombstones of their own. But there are others that evolve a world—one that glows, subsides, and dies away unknown to any save themselves. The solitudes of space appall; the solitudes of the heart can be as endless as they. In those which Justine concealed, a universe had had its being and its subsidence; a universe with gem-like hopes for stars—one in which the sun had been so eager its rays had made her blind. There had been comets gorgeous and tangential as aspirations ever are; there had been the colorless ether of which dreams are made; and for cosmic matter there was love. But now it was all dispersed; there was nothing left, one altar merely—the petrefaction of a prayer erected long since in the depths of her distress, and which for conscience' sake now and then she tended still.
And now, as the play at which she assisted unrolled before her unseeing eyes, one by one scenes from another drama rose unsummoned in its stead. First was the meeting with Mistrial at Tuxedo, then the episode at Aiken, the marriage that followed, and the banishment that ensued: a banishment, parenthetically, which at the time being she was powerless to understand. Her father's anger had indeed weighed on her; but it was not wholly that—she was too much in love to let it be more than a shadow on her delight; nor was it because of unfamiliar lands: it was that little by little, through incidents originally misunderstood and then more completely grasped, the discovery, avoided yet ever returning, came to her, stayed with her, and made her its own—that the man whom she had loved and the man whom she had married were separate and distinct.
The psychologist of woman has yet to appear, and if he keep us waiting may it not be because every woman he analyzes has a sister who differs from her? The moment he formulates a rule it is over-weighted by exceptions. Woman often varies, the old song says; but not alone in her affections does she do so: she varies in temperament as well. And, after all, is it not the temperament that makes or mars a life? Justine, in discovering that the man she married and the man whom she loved were separate and distinct, instead of being disgusted with herself and with him, as you, madam, might have been, tried her utmost to forget the lover and love the husband that had come in his place. In this effort she had pride for an aid. The humiliation which the knowledge of self-deception brings is great, but when that knowledge becomes common property the humiliation is increased. The world—not the world that ought to be, but the world as it is—is more apt to smile than condole. There may be much joy in heaven over the sinner that repents: on earth the joy is at his downfall. And according to the canons we have made for ourselves, Justine, in listening to the dictates of her heart instead of to those of her father, had sinned, so grievously even that that father had bid her begone from his sight. She was aware of this, and in consequence felt it needful to hold her head the higher. And so for a while she made pride serve as fig-leaf to her nakedness. If abashed at heart, at least the world should be uninformed of that abashment.
This effort on her part Mistrial hindered to the best of his ability. Whether or not he loved her, whether save himself he was capable of loving anyone, who shall say? Men too are difficult to decipher. There were hours when after some écart he would come to her so penitent, so pleasant to the eye, and seemingly so afflicted at his own misconduct, that Justine found the strength—or the weakness, was it?—to forgive and to forget anew.
During this period they lived not sumptuously, perhaps, but in that large and liberal fashion which requires a ponderable rent-roll to support; and at that time, however Mistrial comported himself elsewhere, in her presence he had the decency to seem considerate, and affectionate as well. But meanwhile, through constant demands, the value of the letter of credit into which he had converted the better part of her mother's estate became impaired. Retrenchment was necessary, and that is never a pleasant thing. The man that passes out of poverty into wealth finds the passage so easy, so Lethean even, that he is apt to forget what poverty was; but when, as sometimes happens, he is obliged to retrace his steps, he walks bare of foot through a path of thorns. To count gold, instead of strewing it, is irritating to anyone not a sage, and Mistrial, who was not a sage, was irritated; and having, a wife within beck and call he vented that irritation on her.