A Modern Wizard

by Rodrigues Ottolengui

"Yes! Yes!" said the Doctor. "Now come back into the house and let me explain myself." Half forcibly he drew the youth after him, and they returned to the room where they had first been. Then the Doctor resumed:

"Leon, did you suppose that I meant to let you go away? That I would bring you so far and then abandon you to your own resources? Never for one instant did I harbor such a thought. But when you spoke as you did, I determined to try you; to see whether you were speaking in earnest, or for effect. Therefore I seemed to acquiesce. Therefore I let you go without even offering you some money, or telling you to come back to me if in distress. My boy, you stood the trial nobly. I was proud of you as you walked down the path, and I was about to follow you when I saw you pause and turn back. For an instant I feared that you had wavered, but I was more than gratified that it was to plead for the dog, and not for yourself that you returned."

"But Doctor, how can I remain?" asked the lad, helplessly, for already he began to feel the necessity of submitting to the domination of this man, as so many others had experienced.

"How can you remain? Why, simply by doing so. You mean, what will my wife think? She will think just what I wish her to think. It is a habit of hers to do so." Here he laughed significantly. "But you need not fear Madame. You believe that she will resent what she would term an intrusion. But you are mistaken. You will meet her next at dinner, and you will see that she will be quite friendly. In fact, she did not understand matters this morning. She was angry with me because I had not notified her that I would bring home a guest, but when I shall have talked with her that will be all changed."

So the matter was determined, and, as usual, Dr. Medjora's will decided the issue. Meanwhile, Madame had ascended to her room in high dudgeon. Since the day when we last saw her she had altered very little. Her most prominent characteristics had not changed, except as they had become more fully developed. But in many ways this development had been deceptive, for, whereas many who knew her believed that certain unpleasing features had been eliminated from her character, the truth was that she had merely suppressed them, as a matter of policy.

The union of such a woman with a man like Dr. Medjora, was an interesting study in matrimonial psychology. In all marriages one of two results is usually to be anticipated. The stronger individuality will dominate the other and mould it into submission, or the two characters will become amalgamated, each altering the other, until a plane is reached on which there is possible a harmony of desires. In this case neither of these conditions had been fulfilled, although nearly all who were acquainted with the Doctor and his wife supposed that the husband was the ruling spirit. The truth, however, was that while Dr. Medjora controlled his wife in important matters, he had by no means succeeded in merging her character into his own. Where contention arose, she obeyed his commands, but she never submitted her will. She surrendered, like a wise general, to superior force, but she secretly resented her defeat, and sought a way of retreat by which in the end she might compass her own designs.

By these means, she had deceived all of her acquaintances, and she enjoyed the idea that she had also deceived her husband. In this she was mistaken. Dr. Medjora understood thoroughly that his wife only yielded to him under protest, and in many instances he had refrained from making a move, when by doing so he could have thwarted her subsequent efforts to have her own way. Thus he adroitly avoided open warfare, satisfied that in secret strategy he was his wife's equal, if not her superior. In this manner they had lived together for so many years, enjoying their relationship as much as is usual with married folks, and keeping up an outward show that caused all to believe that, with them, matrimony was a great success. And so it was, if one could only overlook the fact that beneath this semblance of happiness there smouldered a fire, which might at any time be aroused by a chance spark, and grow into a blaze which would consume the whole fabric of their existence. The embers of this fire were, jealousy and suspicion on the side of the woman, and secretiveness in the man. Madame Medjora had never forgotten that her inquiry as to whether her husband had had a child by his previous wife had been unanswed; nor had she quite abandoned the hope of satisfying herself upon the subject.

During the later years, she had much regretted to see what she considered one source of power slowly slipping away from her. In the beginning, her husband had not hesitated to call upon her for funds with which to advance his interests, but as the years passed his own resources had increased so rapidly, that he was now entirely independent of her, and, indeed, owing to shrinkages in the values of her property, he was really richer than she. The house in which they lived had been rebuilt by him, and by degrees he had paid off the mortgages out of his earnings, until he owned it freed from debt.

So, as she sat in her room and meditated upon the fact that she had said that Leon should not be admitted to the house, she remembered with a feeling of bitterness that she was the mistress in the house only by right of wifehood, and not because she held any privileges arising from proprietorship.

She had been anticipating pleasure from the reunion with her husband, and now, because of "that country boy," she had received only unkind words from the Doctor. Naturally, she exonerated herself from all fault, and, because of her love, she would not blame her husband. There was no other course but to attribute the whole trouble to Leon. But for him, she argued, all would have been pleasant, therefore he must bear the brunt of her resentment. Already she began to hate him. To hate him as only a tropical temperament can hate. She was in this mood when the Doctor entered. At once she arose to greet him. In an instant she hid within the depths of her bosom all emotions save those of love, and any one, other than the Doctor, would have believed that she harbored no unpleasant recollections or ill feeling because of the recent scene. He was not deceived. He had lived with her for more than fifteen years, and in that time he had appraised her correctly. Now, however, it suited him best to accept her caresses, and to return them with a show of warmth, which made the blood course faster through her veins, the more so because she had expected him to be angry, and because he rarely exhibited much feeling. This wily man well knew the weak spot in this woman's armor, and when he most desired to sway her actions, he first touched her heart.