That bitterness of hers embittered Enslee. He felt that he was being made ridiculous in the sight of man and God and himself. He remembered proverbs about mastership, about women's love of brutality, their fondness for being overpowered.
He grew fiercely petulant, sardonic, ugly. He whined and swore and muttered. And, finally, to that mood she yielded, feeling herself degraded beneath her own contempt.
And now Persis was married and not married. Strange fires were kindled and left to smolder sullenly. Unsuspected desires were stirred to mutiny and not quelled. Latent ferocities of passion were wakened to terrify and torment her. And only now she understood who and what it was she had married. Only now she realized what it meant to marry without love and to marry for keeps. The vision of her future was unspeakably hideous. Her life was already a failure, her career a disaster.
Persis had always loved crowds and the excitement they make. It was only with Forbes that she had found contentment in dual solitude, in hours of quiet converse, or in mute communion. Next best to being with him was being alone, for then she had thoughts of him for company.
Now Forbes was banished from her existence by her own decree. Willie was to be her life-fellow for all her days and nights, while her youth perished loveless.
And now once more she pined for crowds. Solitude with Willie was an alkaline Death Valley without oasis. She grew frantic to be rid of him, or, at least, to mitigate him with other companionships. And he who had been restlessly unhappy without her found that he could not be happy with her, because of the one mad regret that he could not make her love him as he loved her.
Mismated and incompatible in every degree, they glared at each other like sick wretches in the same hospital ward. The next evening as they sat at table in the dining-saloon it came over her that for the rest of her days she must see that unbeautiful face opposite her. She felt an impulse to scream, to run to the railing and leap overboard, to thwart that life-sentence in any possible way. But she kept her frenzy hidden in her breast and said, with all the inconsequence she could assume:
"To-morrow they'll be playing the first international polo game."
Even Willie heard the shiver of longing in the tone. It meant that the honeymoon was already boring her. His heart broke, but all he said was:
"Er—yes—I believe it is to-morrow. Like to go?"