of Justin comes back to me. It is a curious thing that in
spite of our bitter antagonism and the savage jealousy we were to feel
for one another, there has always been, and there remains now in my
thought of him, a certain liking, a regret at our opposition, a quality
of friendliness. His broad face, which the common impression and the
caricaturist make so powerful and eagle-like, is really not a brutal or
heavy face at all. It is no doubt aquiline, after the fashion of an
eagle-owl, the mouth and chin broad and the eyes very far apart, but
there is a minute puckering of the brows which combines with that queer
streak of brown discoloration that runs across his cheek and into the
white of his eyes, to give something faintly plaintive and pitiful to
his expression, an effect enhanced by the dark softness of his eyes.
They are gentle eyes; it is absurd to suppose them the eyes of a
violently forceful man. And indeed they do not belie Justin. It is not
by vehemence or pressure that his wealth and power have been attained;
it is by the sheer detailed abundance of his mind. In that queer big
brain of his there is something of the calculating boy and not a little
of the chess champion; he has a kind of financial gift, he must be rich,
and grows richer. What else is there for him to do? How many times have
I not tried to glance carelessly at his face and scrutinize that look in
his eyes, and ask myself was that his usual look, or was it lit by an
instinctive jealousy? Did he perhaps begin to suspect? I had become a
persistent visitor in the house, he might well be jealous of such minor
favors as she showed me, for with him she talked but little and shared
no thoughts. His manner with her was tinctured by an habituated despair.
They were extraordinarily polite and friendly with one another....

I tried a hundred sophistications of my treachery to him. I assured
myself that a modern woman is mistress and owner of herself; no chattel,
and so forth. But he did not think so, and neither she nor I were
behaving as though we thought so. In innumerable little things we were
doing our best tacitly to reassure him. And so you see me shaking hands
with this man, affecting an interest in his topics and affairs, staying
in his house, eating his food and drinking his wine, that I might be the
nearer to his wife. It is not the first time that has been done in the
world, there are esoteric codes to justify all I did; I perceive there
are type