"Now I am not even sorry!"
"Really? Do you really mean that?"
"Yes. For in that other barnyard there were no drakes as high-minded and chivalrous as you."
High-minded! Chivalrous! How those words singed him! Dazedly he awoke from his wild dream.
"I ... I am not what you think I am," he stammered, conscience-stricken. "I am unworthy. I forgot myself. Forgive me ... I ... I am a married bird!"
And he fled, wobbling rather than waddling, from her presence.
In the solitude of the dim crypt under the veranda he pondered over what had happened. He was contrite, humbled, thoroughly ashamed of himself. As he listened to the ominous rumble of rocking chairs overhead, he felt that the Powers Above knew and were displeased.
And yet he could not free himself from the spell of the enchantress. Her image haunted him,—the dark eyes and radiant bill, the softly undulating neck, the downy complexion, the beautifully-rounded form, the feet that tapered exquisitely toward the heel....
Oppressed by the consciousness of sin, and, at the same time, inflamed by his guilty infatuation, Eustace could not endure being alone a moment longer. He decided to go home. It would be hard to look Gertrude in the beak ... but he would have to; for he needed her spiritual influence. Communion with her strong nature would calm him.
Toddling home moodily, he arrived just as his wife was on the point of leaving.