Yet he was conscious that all that he saw
was a part of his degradation, for he had believed every word she had
uttered. Through all her extravagance, envy, and revengefulness he saw
the central truth--that he had been deceived--not by his wife, but by
himself! He had suspected all this before. This was what had been really
troubling him--this was what he had put aside, rather than his faith,
not in her, but in his ideal. He remembered letters that had passed
between her and Captain Pinckney--letters that she had openly sent to
notorious Southern leaders; her nervous anxiety to remain at the Rancho;
the innuendoes and significant glances of friends which he had put
aside--as he had this woman's message! Susy had told him nothing new of
his wife--but the truth of HIMSELF! And the revelation came from people
who he was conscious were the inferiors of himself and his wife. To an
independent, proud, and self-made man it was the culminating stroke.
In the same abstracted voice he told the coachman to drive home. The
return seemed interminable--though he never shifted his position. Yet
when he drew up at his own door and looked at his watch he found he
had been absent only half an hour. Only half an hour! As he entered the
house he turned with the same abstraction towards a mirror in the hall,
as if he expected to see some outward and visible change in himself
in that time.
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