It was his first glimpse of her since her return from Reno. And now, unbidden, memories half strangled were already in full resurrection, gasping in his ears of things that had been—of forgotten passion, of pleasure promised; and, because never tasted, it had been the true and only pleasure for such a man as he—the pleasure of anticipation. But the world had never, would never believe that. Only he, and the phantom there in the dusk before him, knew it to be true.
Slightly reeling he turned away in the darkness. In his haunted ears sounded a young wife's voice, promising, caressing; through and through him shot a thrill of the old excitement, the old desire, urging him again toward belated consummation.
And again the old impatience seized him, the old ruthlessness, the old anger at finding her weak in every way except one, the old contempt which had turned to sullen amazement when she wrote him that she had gone to Reno and that they must wait for their happiness until the courts decreed it legal.
Now as he swung along under the high stars he was thinking of these things. And he felt that he had not tried her enough, had not really exerted himself—that women who are fools require closer watching than clever ones; that he could have overcome her scruples with any real effort and saved her from giving him the slip and sowing a wind in Reno which already had become enough of a breeze to bother him.
With her, for a while, he might be able to distract his mind from this recent obsession tormenting him. To overcome her would interest him; and he had no doubt it could be done—for she was a little fool—silly enough to slap the world in the face and brave public opinion at Reno. No—it was not necessary to marry such a woman. She might think so, but it wasn't.
He had behaved unwisely, too. Why should he not have gone to see her when she returned? By doing so, and acting cleverly, he could have avoided trouble with his aunt, and also these annoying newspaper paragraphs. Also he could have avoided the scene with Ledwith—and the aborted reconciliation just now with Strelsa, where he had stood staring at the apparition of Mary Ledwith as lost souls stand transfixed before the pallid shades of those whom they have destroyed.
At his lodge-gate a half-cowering dog fawned on him and he kicked it aside. The bruised creature fled, and Sprowl turned in at his gates and walked slowly up the cypress-bordered drive.
He thought it all out that night, studied it carefully. What he needed was distraction from the present torment. Mary Ledwith could give that to him. What a fool she had been ever to imagine that she could be anything more than his temporary mistress.
"The damned little idiot," he mused—"cutting away to Reno before I knew what she was up to—and involving us both in all that talk! What did she flatter herself I wanted, anyway.... But I ought to have called on her at once; now it's going to be difficult."