Blindfold

by Orrick Johns

Then the country began to pall on Miles. He grew restless and evasive; at breakfast he would hint at various reasons for going to New York. When their second week end came around he managed a convincing excuse and disappeared with a small handbag full of over-night clothing.

Moira’s heart sank at this unexpected turn of affairs, and she spent the days in his absence giving way to more real despair than she had ever known with him. This time she had done her best, done what a little while ago she would have thought impossible, and she had failed....

He seemed to come back passionately eager to see her, and so long as he did that she could only surrender to him and see in him still her lover and her first lover, her lover for all time. But these waves of passion died away; her presence and the children’s began to irk him in a day or two, sometimes in a few hours, and it soon appeared to her that he regarded a week as an interminable visit.

She set herself to observing him, to studying his chance remarks, and for the first time a genuine doubt of his fidelity oppressed her. There was nothing tangible, except his trips to the city, to justify this suspicion, and these would have been inadequate despite his evasions. She could quite naturally think of him as being restless, as wanting to go away, without dreaming that he would belie her faith in him. The suspicion of infidelity came before the evidence, but once the suspicion was lodged in her mind, the evidence, all unconsciously furnished by Miles, piled up by little and little.

She saw that this warmth of love-making with which he returned to her did not last an hour. Bitter thoughts assailed her. Evidently he was not always successful with his hypothetical sweetheart or sweethearts and was driven back to his wife. She could not keep fantastic exaggerations out of her head, though in her sober moments she told herself that the truth, if probably serious, was far less florid than she imagined.

Nevertheless, there grew upon her an increasing repugnance toward his advances. She made no issue of it. She did not want conflict. He was very appealing, very hard on her sympathies, very skilful in inventions. She could not quickly forget that he had suffered and struggled while he still loved her. But her inescapable conclusion, reached in hours of cold reflection, was that they were parting; that sooner or later an end would come. She determined not to invite it so long as her pride was not sacrificed; to wait for it sensibly and coolly.

Another explanation of Miles’ conduct brought a curious sort of consolation and corrective. This was that he simply wanted to be free—but did not have the strength. The opportunity had been placed in his way to leave, and, feeling himself ultimately unequal to marriage and its burdens and limitations, he believed he ought to take it. His love still held him tenuously to her and the children, his sentiment for their past together, his need for a woman’s support—whatever it was—and he could not find the courage to make the break. He had probably been strengthened in entertaining this purpose by the knowledge that somebody had turned up from Thornhill, and she would be taken care of. Much as that base notion offended her, this last theory was frankly pleasing. It was better than the thought of betrayal with another woman.

By the time she had reached this state of enlightenment she was so skilled in reading poor Miles’ motives that she felt as though she had acquired supernatural powers of clairvoyance. The summer was more than half gone.

But she had not thought exclusively of Miles. She had the children to care for and teach a whole new set of fascinating things, and she had her painting. The opportunity presented by these untrammelled days was not to be lost over heart-burnings, and a new power and certainty had come to her. She wasted less time carrying her attempts to the last degree of finish. She was trying by experiment after experiment to get the feel and solidity of the earth and to express her warm daily contact with it.

She had been very timid toward Osprey where painting was concerned. She had resolved never to speak to him about it and to keep out of his way while she was at it. One ought not to expect to rent the cottage of a famous painter and have advice thrown in. But it was he who sought her in the orchard one morning and made comments for which she was grateful, because she understood them and could profit by them, and also because they were not uncomplimentary.