Page:The Two Women (1910).djvu/58

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
A FOG IN SANTONE
 

that mean but that women instinctively knew him for one they could hoodwink? Still again: there reverberated the policeman’s sapient contribution to his agony—“A man these days and nights wants to know what his women folks are up to.” Oh, yes; he had been a fool; he had looked at things from the wrong standpoint.

But, .the wildest note in all the clamor was struck by Pain’s fore-finger jealousy. Now, at last, he felt that keenest sting—a mounting love unworthily bestowed. Whatever she might be, he loved her; he bore in his own breast his doom. A grating, comic flavor to his predicament struck him suddenly, and he laughed creakingly as he swung down the echoing pavement. An impetuous desire to act, to battle with his fate, seized him. He stopped upon his heel, and smote his palms together triumphantly. His wife was—where?—but there was a tangible

61