The child was brought, praised and caressed, and Mr. Torrance was so devotedly kind to Kathleen, that she began to feel as if the events of the last two days were only an idle dream, from which she had happily awakened. But she was soon to know that such dreams often recur.
[CHAPTER XXII]
FRUITS MEET FOR REPENTANCE
THE four years which followed Kathleen's first quarrel with her husband were far from happy ones. When a mask has fallen off, the wearer seldom cares to replace it. In like manner, when a certain character has been assumed to gain a selfish end, if the counterfeit is discovered, the pretender ceases to act an unnatural part.
John Torrance became in time less anxious to hide from Kathleen that he differed widely, both from her ideal and what he had determined to become after marriage. He was more than ever from home, and she knew less and less of the places and persons amongst which and whom he spent his time apart from her.
Some young wives might have yielded, and gone to places which in girlish days they had been taught to shun.
"Come with me, Kitty," John would say. "I want some one to keep me out of mischief."
She knew this, but was well aware that she would be helpless. Such influence as she possessed in their early married days had long vanished. She strove to make home attractive, she studied her husband's wishes and obeyed him in all that was right. She possessed her soul in patience amidst many provocations. She knew nothing of money matters, but hitherto Mr. Torrance had kept her purse well supplied, and often complimented her on her modest expenditure, saying, "You are really economical, Kitty, but you are always well dressed."
She would smile with pleasure, rewarded by the words for the trouble she had given to externals. She often said to herself, "John shall not find me indifferent in little things."
Aylmer Matheson was only too well informed as to Mr. Torrance's position, and often asked himself, "How many years will pass before he is as much embarrassed as he was when poor Kathleen's splendid, but mistaken generosity saved him from ruin and made him rich?"