He was plaintive this forenoon, but not peevish. His eyes were bloodshot; his tongue was furry; there was a gnawing in the pit of his stomach and an unaccountable ache at the base of the brain.
“I have missed another sunstroke by a hair’s breadth,” he informed his wife. “I almost regret that we did not go to the seashore. My summer labors are exhausting the reserves of vital energy.”
“Why not run down to the beach for a day or two next week?” suggested Mrs. Wayt. “Now that your wife is an heiress, you can afford a change of air, now and then.”
A dull red arose in the sallow cheek. He pulled her down to kiss her.
“The best, sweetest wife ever given to man!” he said.
After that he bade her get a little rest. She must have slept little the night before. Annie would keep him company. While his head was so light and his tongue so thick Annie’s was the best society for him. She made no demand upon intellectual forces. He sent the best wife ever given to man off lightened in spirit, and grateful for the effort he made to appease her anxiety and to affect the gayety he could not be supposed to feel. She looked back at the door to exchange affectionate smiles with the dear, unselfish fellow.
He watched the baby’s pretty, quaint pretense of “being mamma,” and hearkened to the drip and plash of the rain until the gnawing in his stomach re-asserted itself importunately. He knew what it meant. It was the demand of the devil-appetite he had created long ago—his Frankenstein, his Old Man of the Sea, his body of death, lashed fast to him, lying down when he lay down, rising up at his awakening, keeping step with him, however he might try to flee. The lust he had courted rashly—now become flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone.
His wife had carried off the phial of opium. But he had secreted a supply of the drug for such emergencies since she had found out the phosphate device and privately confiscated the stout blue bottle. He always carried a small Greek Testament in his hip pocket. Mrs. Wayt’s furtive search of his clothes every night, after making sure that he was asleep, had not extended to the removal of the sacred volume.
He arose stealthily, steadied his reeling head by holding hard to the back of his neck with one hand, while the other caught at the chairs and bed-foot; tiptoed to the closet, found his black cloth pantaloons, drew out the Testament, and extracted from the depths beneath a wad of silken, rustleless paper. Within was a lump of dark brown paste.
“Tan’y! tan’y!” twittered Annie’s sweet, small pipe. “Give baby a piece! p’ease, dee papa!”