“If I had not got away from her chatter of Pauline Varian, I should have screamed out aloud like a nervous woman, I verily believe.”
He walked away in the dying glow of the rosy sunset toward the little town, passing Idlewild, as he did daily, and watched by eyes of which he little recked, for he was too proud to glance toward her windows.
Every day, with an angry pain, she had seen him pass and she thanked fate there would be but one day more of it, for the maid was well again now, though why she should have watched him when she need not, no man could have told, since the sex is rather obtuse on feminine caprices.
Why need she follow him with such straining gaze, she, the proud, wealthy Mrs. Varian, admired of men, envied of women, no less for her charms than her gifts of fortune? She had everything life could give but happiness. He—and she knew it—was but a poor lawyer, too careless of fortune to woo her successfully, too weary of life to find pleasure in it; not quite so blue-blooded as the Varians, either, yet not a man to look down on, for nature at least had been lavish of brains and beauty and stubborn pride, not to mention an unenviable capacity for suffering stolidly borne.
In her heart she believed him weak and unstable and scorned him accordingly; but as for him, he understood her better than she did herself, yet never relaxed his resentment over a cruel wrong, never contemplated forgiveness, even if she should pray for it.
Watching her carriage yesterday, as it dashed past the steps where he had stood, he had recalled with grim pain some fitting words:
“You walk the sunny side of fate,
The wise world smiles and calls you great,
The golden fruitage of success
Drops at your feet in plenteousness;