Kitabı oku: «Was It Right to Forgive? A Domestic Romance», sayfa 13
CHAPTER IX
One afternoon towards the end of March, Adriana was riding down Broadway. At Twenty-third Street there was some obstruction and delay, and she saw Duval and Rose together. They were coming up Fifth Avenue, and their walk was lingering and absorbed, Duval’s attitude being specially earnest and lover-like. Rose was listening with a faint smile, and Adriana noticed that she was dressed with great care, and that she had flowers both at her breast and in her hands. Adriana’s first thought was to alight and join the pair; but her second thought was a reproof of her suspicion – “Charity thinketh no evil,” she mused, “and Rose may have simply met the man and permitted him to walk at her side.”
Then she reflected that she had never heard Rose name Duval since her marriage; and that the man had been conspicuously absent from the Van Hoosen entertainments. She knew also that Rose was vain and sentimental, and that one of her dear, dangerous pleasures was to make every man think “it might have been.” But she did not know that on the subject of Mr. Duval Rose and her husband had a passionate, intermitting quarrel, that Rose put Duval’s name on every list of her guests, and that Antony always crossed it off, with peremptory positiveness, and that consequently there was in Rose’s heart a secret partisanship which had a dangerous romance about it. 225 For it was impossible for Antony to prevent Rose from meeting the man in the houses of friends, in the crowded foyers of the theatre or opera, on the street, on the drive in the park; and on all such occasions a glance, a word, a lingering hand clasp, conveyed to Rose a meaning she ought not to have understood, and won from her in return an interest or sympathy she ought not to have given.
For once that this secret understanding was established, she found it hard to escape from its influence; gradually, almost unconsciously, the intimacy grew; and Rose, feeling sure in her heart that she meant nothing wrong, was quite off her guard, and only sensible of the pleasure that the secret, silent romance gave her. Love, however, that believes itself favored, is not long satisfied with such results, and Duval had grown more bold, more exacting, more dangerous, with every meeting. For he was actuated by motives not to be easily dashed, and he was resolved to carry his point. First, he admired Rose; second, he was poor, and Rose had at least $10,000 a year entirely at her own disposal; third, he hated Antony; and for these reasons, to induce Rose to leave Antony had become the passion of his life – a passion so eager, earnest, and pervading, that Rose was frightened at its strength. The man had gained a point at which he could both coax and threaten, and the poor weak woman – really loving her husband and adoring her child – was led, and ordered, and pleased, and tormented, by the whimsies of this sentimental affair, which she thought was driving Duval either to ruin or to death.
Of this condition Adriana, as well as all others who loved Rose, was entirely ignorant. Yet the sight of 226 the couple, and their absorbed manner, forced itself again and again on Adriana’s consciousness; and she resolved to name the circumstance to Harry that night. Harry listened, and looked much annoyed, but he answered finally:
“I do not believe there is anything wrong, Yanna. It is imprudent of Rose, and not right; and I wonder at her, for Antony told me an hour ago that little Emma was seriously ill. What a worry he does make over that baby of theirs!”
“It is such a frail, lovely little creature; and Antony has such a tender heart.”
“And Rose does not hover over her nursery, as you do, Yanna.”
“But you think there is nothing wrong, Harry?”
“In a legal sense, nothing. But, nevertheless, it is a shame for Rose to carry on such intrigues; and I will see her in the morning and give her some plain words. Antony is too careful of her feelings. I am glad she is not my wife.”
Then the subject was dropped, and Adriana did not entertain it again. In her secret heart, she felt that she might forgive Rose if she were driven to deceive her husband by the force of a strong passion; but for this silly, weak drifting into sin and danger on little currents of vanity and sensual romance, she had no toleration. Refusing consciously to reason out the exact turpitude of Antony’s wife, anger at the erring woman lay at the bottom of all her thoughts, as she moved about the household duties of the day. “Such a good husband! Such a lovely little daughter! How can Rose wrong them both so shamefully?” These unspoken words rang to and fro like a fretful complaining in her inner self.
While she was taking lunch, Rose came to see her. She entered the room with much of her old effusiveness; she kissed and petted her sister-in-law, and said: “Give me a strong cup of tea, Yanna. I am worn out. Baby was ill all night, and Antony would neither sleep nor let any one else sleep.”
“But if Emma were sick you would not be able to sleep, I am sure. And she must be better, or you would not have left the little one at all.”
“Mamma is watching her. I just ran over to see you. It always rests me and makes me strong to see you, Yanna. I know what you are going to say – that I might, then, come oftener – so also I might go oftener to church. But I do not love you the less, Yanna; when I am good I always love you.”
“Dear Rose, I wish you were always what you call ‘good.’”
“I wish I were! I do long to be good! I am so weak and silly, but there is a good Rose somewhere in me. Do you think baby is really very sick?”
“Babies all suffer dreadfully, Rose, in teething. I often wonder how grown-up people would endure half-a-dozen teeth forcing their way through sore, inflamed gums. There would be swearing among the men, and hysteria among the women, and we should all do as Burns did when he had only one troublesome tooth – kick the furniture about – really, or figuratively.”
“Poor Emma! I do love her! I do love her! If there is anything on earth I love, it is Emma. But Antony is simply absurd. He insists on the whole house teething, too. He will have no company; and some one has to sit by Emma’s cot all night because, he says, ‘she must need cold water often,’ and when I told him this morning that we had all gone through the 228 same suffering once in our lives, he looked at me as if he thought I was a brute. I was only trying to aggravate him. He ought not to tempt me to aggravate him; for I cannot help doing it. And of course, I love Emma far better than he does. I nearly died for her. I was provoked with Antony this morning.”
“What does the doctor say?”
“He says baby is to go to the mountains, so we are to have the Woodsome house; and papa and mamma are going to Europe. Papa wants ‘authorities.’ I should think the British Museum may perhaps satisfy him.”
“We are going to Woodsome also, this summer. How soon will you leave the city?”
“That is what we are disputing about. Antony wants to go at once. I want to give one, just one, farewell dance before shutting myself up for months. I wish you could have seen Antony’s face when I proposed it. I just wish you could! It was awful! He said ‘No,’ and he stood on ‘No,’ and nothing short of an earthquake could have moved him. I simply hate Antony, when he is so ugly; and I told him I hated him.”
“But it is not right to dance and feast when your child is so ill, Rose.”
“My baby is no worse than other babies in the same condition. I am so weary of all the trouble. I feel like running away and hiding myself from every one. I wish I were in some place where Antony, and mamma, and Harry, and every one, could not be perpetually saying, ‘You must not do this,’ or, ‘You must do that.’ The other day I heard of a heavenly land, where the sun always shines, and the flowers always bloom, and loving and dancing and singing and feasting make up the whole of life.”
“Oh, Rose! Rose! That is a very earthly land, indeed.”
“A woman has no youth in this country. And I shall only be a very little time young now. I do grudge spending my young days in gloom, and sorrow, and scolding. It is too bad. If I should fly away to some wilderness, would you take care of my baby, Yanna?”
“What nonsense are you talking, Rose?”
“Of course, it is nonsense; and yet I might die – or commit suicide – or something. If anything happened to you, I would take little Harry and make him my very own. Would you take little Emma if anything happened to me? I might die.”
“My dear Rose, you are not likely to die.”
“I know I am not – but things happen.”
“What things?”
“Accidents – and such things. One never knows. It does seem a silly thing to ask, but I have a sudden feeling about it, Yanna. If I should die – or anything should happen – you are to take Emma and bring her up to be good – I mean pious – I mean not like her poor, silly mother. How absurd I am! Whatever is the matter with me? Am I going to be ill, I wonder? Am I going to have a fever?”
“I saw you yesterday on Broadway. What a pretty suit you had on! Mr. Duval was with you.”
“Mr. Duval! Yes. I had forgotten. Yes, I met Dick as I came out of a store, and we walked up a block to Twenty-third Street. Do you know that store under the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where they sell such lovely jewelry? I was going there.”
“I do not think Antony would like you to go anywhere with Mr. Duval.”
“Antony will just have to dislike it then. He has gone as far as I intend to let him. The past two weeks he has wanted me to sit by the cradle, day and night, and night and day. I love my child, but I do want a breath of fresh air sometimes.”
“I was speaking of Mr. Duval.”
“Harry has also been speaking of Mr. Duval this morning. I told Harry to mind his own affairs. I say the same to you, Yanna. It is too much, when a married woman cannot speak to an old friend, cannot walk three or four blocks with him, without having her whole family suspect her immediately of breaking – or at least cracking – the ten commandments.”
“You know how Antony feels about that Duval.”
“I know Antony is an idiot about him. I know his behavior has been shameful to ‘that Duval.’ Poor Dick! What has the man done but dare admire me? A cat may look at a king. Many women would give Antony a lesson on that subject – they would not be accused for nothing.”
“But not you, Rose! Not you, dear Rose! Do not be impatient. Baby will soon be well, and Antony does love you so – ”
“Do hush, Yanna! Antony loves nothing about me. But I must go now, or else I shall get another scolding for leaving baby so long; or a look worse than words; or silence, and Antony ostentatiously walking Emma up and down the floor; and mamma sighing; and the doctor solemnly standing by; and the nurse tip-toeing about the room; and the room so dark, and smelling of drugs, and full of suffering – it is all so dreadful! For I want to be out in the fresh spring air, and wind, and sunshine. I want to dance and run in it. My blood goes racing through my veins like 231 quicksilver, and it is a kind of torture to sit still, and talk in whispers, and see baby’s white waxy face, and smell nothing but drugs. When I went to show myself to Antony yesterday in my new suit, and held the lovely roses to his face, he turned away as if I were a fright, and put the flowers from him, as if they hurt. Such ways I cannot understand!”
This conversation rather quieted than increased Yanna’s misgivings. She thought she understood the restless woman. Beautiful, and longing to exhibit her beauty, full of the pulse and pride of youth, excited by dreams of all sensuous delights, romantic, sentimental, and vain, she was resentful at the circumstances which bound her to the stillness and shadow of the sick room, because she was incredulous of any necessity for such devotion. For the latter feeling Mrs. Filmer was much to blame. She had not the keen intuitions regarding life and death which Antony possessed; she had dim remembrances of her own children’s trials, she had the experiences of her friends on the same subject, and she did not honestly believe little Emma was in any special danger. Consequently, she had supported Rose in her claim to regard her own health, and go out a little every day. And if Antony had been asked for the reason of his great anxiety, he would not have cared to explain it to his wife or his mother-in-law. Both these women would have smiled at what he had learned through the second sight of dreams, in that mysterious travail of sleep, by which the man that feareth God is instructed and prepared for “the sorrow that is approaching”; because, if apprehension of the supernatural is not in the human soul, neither miracle nor revelation can authenticate it to them.
So Antony bore his fear in silence, and told no one the Word that had come to him; strengthening his heart with the brave resolve of the wise Esdras: “Now, therefore, keep thy sorrow to thyself; and bear with a good courage that which hath befallen thee.”
About ten days after this event, Rose left her home early one morning to complete the shopping necessary for their removal to Woodsome on the following day. Mrs. Filmer promised to remain with the sick child until her return; but she urged Rose to make all haste possible, as there were various matters in the Filmer household to attend to ere Mr. Filmer and herself could comfortably leave for Europe on the Saturday’s steamer. With these considerations in view, she was annoyed at Rose for positively refusing the carriage. “I want to walk, mamma,” she said crossly; “and if I get tired, I will take the street cars.”
“But you may be delayed by them, and time is precious now.”
Then she kissed her mother affectionately, and stooped to little Emma’s cot, and with a long, soft pressure of her lips to the lips of the fragile-looking child, she went away, promising to be home certainly before noon. But she was not home at one o’clock; and Mrs. Filmer and Antony ate their lunch together, both of them with a hot, angry heart at Rose’s indifference. At two o’clock Rose was still absent, and a singular feeling of alarm had taken the place of anger.
“What keeps Rose so long, mother?” asked Antony, in an anxious voice.
“I do not know, Antony. She could have been back in an hour. It is four hours since she left.”
“Can you think of anything? Have you not some idea where she is?”
“She was very tired and low-spirited. She may have gone to see her father, and then – being so tired – have taken a glass of wine, and lain down to rest in her own old room. I can think of nothing else.”
“She would not be likely to make calls?”
“Make calls so early! in a shopping costume! and without a carriage! She would not think of such a thing.”
“May she have gone to Yanna’s?”
“I should say not. She does not care for Yanna as she used to do.”
“Will you go home and see if she is in her old room resting? I have a strange, unhappy feeling about her.”
“I will go at once. I shall find her at home, no doubt.”
But though Mrs. Filmer spoke confidently, she was by no means sure of her affirmation. She went home with a trembling, sick heart, and found that Rose had not been there at all. For a moment or two she was unable to think or to act, and she was going blindly to Mr. Filmer’s study when she met Harry.
“Oh, my dear boy!” she cried, “you are just the one person needed. I am almost distracted, Harry. Rose went out this morning at ten o’clock; and she has not come home, and we are wretched about her.”
Harry took out his watch. “It is not quite three, mother. Rose has perhaps gone to see Yanna, or some of her acquaintances; or she may be at her dressmaker’s, or – ”
“Harry, there is something wrong. You cannot reason the certainty out of my heart. I am sick with fear.”
“Dear mother, there is nothing wrong at all. Go 234 and lie down, or talk to father, and I will bring you word that all is well in an hour. Sure.”
“Where are you going?”
“I am going home. Yanna will know something.”
He took a cab at the nearest stand, and drove rapidly to his own house. Adriana started, and stood up quickly, as he entered. “What is the matter, Harry?” she cried.
“Rose seems to have got herself out of the way. She left home at ten o’clock this morning, and has not returned. Mother is quite nervous and ill about her. Has she been here?”
For a minute Adriana stood motionless, as one by one the thoughts flashed across her mind which led her to the truth; and when she spoke, it was in the voice of a woman who had pulled herself together with the tightest rein. “Harry,” she answered, “while I put on my hat and cloak, have the carriage made ready. Do not lose a single moment.”
“Where are you going?”
“To pier sixteen, East River.”
“What in heaven are you going there for?”
“The Cuban steamer.”
“The Cuban steamer?”
“Have you forgotten? Duval is a Cuban. I know now who told Rose of a land all sunshine and flowers – and misery and cruelty,” she added passionately, as she ran to her room with a hurry that sent Harry to the stables with equal haste.
When the carriage came to the door, Adriana was waiting. Harry was stepping, to her side, but she shook her head positively. “You must go for Antony,” she said. “Bring him to the steamer. It is the only way.”
At a very rapid pace the carriage was driven to the foot of Wall Street. It was, however, to Adriana a tedious journey, and often interrupted; and she sat wringing her hands in impotent impatience at every delay. When she reached the pier, she found herself in all the tumult and hurry that attends a departing steamer; but the gangway was clear, and she went straight on board The Orizaba. The first persons she saw were Duval and Rose. They were leaning over the taffrail, with their backs to Adriana, and Duval was talking impetuously, holding Rose’s hand in his own. Her attitude was reluctant and hesitating, and when Adriana said, “Excuse me, Mr. Duval, I have come for Mrs. Van Hoosen,” Rose turned with a sharp cry, and put her hand in Yanna’s.
“Pardon, madame,” answered Duval in a passion, “Mrs. Van Hoosen chooses to remain with me.”
“Rose, dear Rose! think of your little daughter. Turn back, dear one, for God’s sake! turn back! Have you forgotten your mother and father, your brother and your loving husband? Rose, come with me. Fly for your life! Fly for your soul! Come! Come! There is no time to lose.”
Duval was urging the foolish, distracted woman at the same time, pleading his misery, and contrasting her dull, unhappy life in Woodsome village with all the joys he promised her in Cuba. And Rose was weeping bitterly. It was also evident that she had been taking wine, and very likely some drug in it. For her mind was dull, and her conscience was dull, and she seemed too inert to decide so momentous a question herself.
But as they stood thus together, and Rose was weakly clinging to Yanna’s arm, Antony came towards 236 them, swift and stern as Fate. He put his hand on Rose’s shoulder, and turned the dear wretched sinner round till she faced him. He had no need to speak. She looked piteously at Yanna, and said, “Tell Antony why I came – there is nothing wrong.” And then she laughed so foolishly that Adriana thought the laugh far more pitiful than tears.
“Mr. Duval is going to Cuba,” said Adriana to her brother. “We will now say ‘farewell’ to him.”
“Mrs. Van Hoosen is going to Cuba also,” said Duval, with a mocking air. “Come, Rose, my love!”
Then in his throat Antony gave him the lie, and with one back-handed blow, struck him in the mouth and sent him reeling backward like a drunken man.
Ere he could recover himself, Rose and Antony, followed by Adriana, were going down the gangway, and a sailor was ringing a bell, and bidding all not for the voyage to make for the shore. Duval did not make for the shore. He waited until Antony was putting Rose and Adriana in the carriage ere he shouted after Antony scandalous epithets, which he did not deign to notice. But they went like fire into his ears; and he looked into Rose’s apathetic face, sullen and angry, with a sense of such shame and misery as he had never before experienced.
Silently they drove to Adriana’s house, and then Antony kissed her, and said with some difficulty, “I can never thank you enough, Yanna,” and Yanna, smiling sadly in reply, turned to Rose and said, “Good-bye, Rose. I shall see you at Woodsome, I hope, soon.”
Rose did not respond in any way. Her eyes were cast down, she seemed to be lost to sense and feeling, except for a perceptible drawing away from her 237 husband when he took the seat which Yanna had vacated. Furtively she glanced into his face, and she was aware of, though she was not sorry for, its utter wretchedness. Indeed, in no way did she evince the slightest contrition for her offence. Antony, however, doubted whether she was in a condition to fully realize it. With soulless eyes, she gazed on the panorama of the streets, and if she had any just knowledge of sin committed, it lay in some corner of her conscience, far below the threshold of her present intelligence.
It seemed a never-ending ride to Antony. The familiar streets were strange to him, and his own house was like a house in a dream. He fancied the coachman looked curious and evilly intelligent. It was not that his body burned, his very soul burned with shame and pity and just anger. He gave Rose his arm, however, up the flight of steps, but she withdrew herself with a motion of impatience as soon as they entered the hall, and she was not at all aware of a feeling, an atmosphere, a sense of something sorrowful and unusual, which struck Antony as quickly as he passed the threshold. The next moment a door opened, and the family physician came forward.
Antony looked at him and divined what he was going to say. “She is worse, doctor?” he whispered.
“She is well, sir. Well, forever!”
Then, with such a cry as could only come from a wounded soul, Antony fled upstairs. Rose sank into the nearest chair. She had not yet any clear conception of her misery. But in a moment or two, Antony returned with his little dead daughter in his arms. He was weeping like a woman; nay, he was sobbing as men sob who have lost hope.
“Oh, my darling!” he cried. “My little comforter! 238 My lost angel!” and with every exclamation he kissed the lovely image of Death. Straight to the trembling, dazed mother he took the clay-cold form, which had already been dressed for its burial. And when Rose understood the fact, she was like one awakening from a dream – there was a moment’s stupor, a moment’s recollection, a moment’s passionate realization of her loss; and then shriek after shriek, from a mind that suddenly lost its balance and fell from earth to hell.
Fortunately, the physician was at hand, and for once Antony left Rose to his care. His sympathy seemed dead. He had borne until his capacity for suffering was exhausted. He lay down on the nursery couch, close to his dead child, and God sent him the sleep He gives to His beloved when the sorrow is too great for them. On awakening he found Mrs. Filmer at his side. She was weeping, and her tears made Antony blind also. He drew his hands across his eyes, and stood up, feeling weak and shattered, and ill from head to feet.
“Antony,” said Mrs. Filmer, “you have behaved nobly this day. I cannot thank you as I would like to.”
“Emma is dead!” he answered. “Dear mother, that is all I can bear to-night. Such a sad, little, suffering life! If I could only have suffered for her! If I could only have been with her at the hour. I watched for that favor. I grudged to leave her, even to eat or sleep – and I missed it after all! For I hoped at the moment of parting to have some vision or assurance that her tender little soul would not have to pass alone through the great outer space and darkness. Where is she now? Who is her Helper? Will Christ indeed carry her in his bosom until her small feet reach the fields of Paradise? Mother! mother! I am 239 broken-hearted this night. Who was with her when she died?”
“It seems that she died alone. The nurse thought she was asleep, and she went downstairs to make herself a cup of tea. When she came back Emma was dead. The doctor says she had a fit and died in it.”
“No one to help her! No one to kiss her! It is too cruel! My dear one would open her eyes at last and find no father – no mother – no one at all to say ‘good-bye’ to her!”
“Come, come, Antony! The doctor thinks she never recovered consciousness. He says she did not suffer. You have saved Rose. Go and say a word to her. She is in despair.”
“I will speak to her as soon as I can. I cannot see her until – until the child has been taken away from me.”
Mrs. Filmer pressed him no further. She thought it best to leave him much alone. His thin, worn cheeks, and sunken eyes – showing pain, anxiety, and sleepless nights – were touchingly human. They said plainer than any words could, “Trouble me no more until I am stronger; until my soul can reach that serene depth where it can say, ‘Thy will be done,’ until, indeed, I can turn to Romans, the eighth chapter and the twenty-eighth verse, and stand firmly with its grand charter of God’s deliverance in my hand.”
When the child was buried, Antony made an effort to speak to his wife. But she would not speak to him. She had assumed an attitude quite unexpected – that of an injured woman. She complained to her mother that an infamous advantage had been taken of a trifling escapade. “I simply went to see an old friend off to Cuba; and Yanna – because of a conversation I 240 had with her a few days previously – is sure I am going to desert my husband and child. She races down to the steamer, and makes a scene there; and Antony follows to bring on a grand climax! No! I will not forgive either Yanna or Antony.”
“What had you said to Yanna?”
“Just a little serious conversation – such as I wanted to be good, and so on – and I asked her if anything happened to me to look after baby. Feeling always makes a fool of me. I won’t feel any more. I won’t want to be good any more.”
“You had no necessity to ask that woman to look after baby. Was not I sufficient?”
“I was in one of my good moods. I wanted Yanna to think I was lovely. I do not care now what any one thinks.”
And she acted out this programme to its last letter. She was either despondently or mockingly indifferent to all that was proposed. After some delay, her father and mother went to Europe. Yanna and Harry went to stay with Miss Alida; and Antony made what preparations were necessary, and removed his household to the Filmer place at Woodsome. Rose took no part in the removal. When she perceived that the house was to be closed, she accompanied Antony to the country. But no good resulted from the change. She refused to see visitors; if she went out, it was entirely alone; and she passed Yanna and Miss Alida as if they were utter strangers to her. A spoiled, wilful girl, who had never felt the bit on her life, she had suddenly thrown off all control but that of the evil spirit which had taken possession of her.
Still she preserved a kind of decorum. There was a general impression that she had nearly lost her reason 241 about her child’s death; and people excused and pitied her aberrations in consequence, or if rumors of the real truth permeated society at Woodsome, it was quickly discredited. Men and women alike pointed to the devotion of Antony and refused to believe it; and in some way the sorrowful shake of Miss Alida’s head at Rose’s name, and Yanna’s painful silence, impressed on the community an idea of Rose’s suffering rather than of her wickedness. Sometimes a servant would say boldly that Mrs. Van Hoosen was ill-tempered and took too much wine, but no one credited the judgment, except those who hated Rose and wished to believe it.
Indeed, in the latter respect Rose’s temper had had a good result. Antony would have neither wine nor liquor of any kind in his house, and as Rose refused to visit, her opportunities for indulging the taste were limited. She did not appear to mind this deprivation as much as might have been expected. Her insane indulgence of temper swallowed up every other vice. She had drunk mainly to induce that exhilaration which she fancied added so much to her beauty, and to excite that boundless flow of repartee which made her the center of a crowd of silly young men who liked to have their small wits tickled, and who hoarded her jokes to retail as their own.
She had now no little circle to entertain; she did not care to please any one in Woodsome; she even took a pleasure in displeasing Antony, and her one daily excitement was to try to meet Yanna and Miss Alida driving, and embarrass their movements, or pass them with insolent disdain. Peter Van Hoosen was the only person she treated with her old kindness and charm. To him she was gentle and sad, and one morning she 242 wandered an hour with him in his garden, listening to his words of comfort about little Emma, until they were both ready to weep. So that when Peter saw his son next, he spoke sharply to him about Rose, and frankly told him he was not worthy to have the charge of such a little, proud, sensitive heart; indeed, Peter was quite sure that Rose would have been an excellent wife under such guidance as he would have given her.
So the summer went away and Rose had the satisfaction of feeling that she had made all her friends as wretched as she had made herself. Yet there was no apparent effort to do this; and there was no need of effort; for the power of those indirect influences which distil from a life are greater than effort, and Rose had only to wander about the house and grounds, a picture of woe, lonely and uncomplaining, to destroy the summer sunshine and set every one on the edge of quarreling about her. For she had really a strong personality, and her unhappy moods affected the household as perceptibly as rain affects the atmosphere.
For weeks Antony endeavored to understand and conquer this attitude. He followed her in her lonely walks, and she listened to what he said as if she heard him not. Or she permitted him to walk at her side, and yet behaved precisely as if he were not there. If he visited her in her own apartment, she made him just the same nonentity. She heard no question he asked; she answered no remark he made. Kind or reproachful words fell alike upon her consciousness, and she made no sign of being touched by them; for to Antony she had ceased even to pretend to be an angel.
