He stood very still for a
few minutes, wondering what could keep Linda awake so far into
the night, and while his thoughts were upon her he wondered, too,
why she did not care to have beautiful clothes such as Eileen
wore; and then he went further and wondered why, when she could
be as entertaining as she had been the night she joined them at
dinner, she did not make her appearance oftener; and then,
because the mind is a queer thing, and he had wondered about a
given state of affairs, he went a step further, and wondered
whether the explanation lay in Linda's inclinations or in
Eileen's management, and then his thought fastened tenaciously
upon the subject of Eileen's management.
He was a patient man. He had allowed his reason and better
judgment to be swayed by Eileen's exquisite beauty and her
blandishments. He did not regret having discovered before it was
too late that Marian Thorne was not the girl he had thought her.
He wanted a wife cut after the clinging-vine pattern. He wanted
to be the dominating figure in his home. It had not taken Eileen
long to teach him that Marian was self-assertive and would do a
large share of dominating herself. He had thought that he was
perfectly satisfied and very happy with Eileen; yet that day he
repeatedly had felt piqued and annoyed with her. She had openly
cajoled and flirted with Henry Anderson past a point which was
agreeable for any man to see his sweetheart go with another man
With Peter Morrison she had been unspeakably charming in a manner
with which John was very familiar.
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