Three days after the return of the Cannons², Dominick Ryan also came home. He had answered Berny’s letter the day the Cannons left, a few hours after that interview with the Bonanza³ King, in which, driven to bay by the old man’s questions, he had torn the veil from his married life.  
After that there was a period of several hours when he sat in his room thinking over what had happened. It seemed to him that he had played a dastardly part. He saw himself a creature of monumental, gross selfishness, who had cajoled a young girl, in a moment of softness and sentiment, into an action which had done nothing but distress⁴ and humiliate⁵ her. He, who should have been the strong one, had been weak. It was he who should have seen how things were going; he, the married man, who had allowed himself to feel and to yield to a love that ought to have been hidden for ever in his own heart.
 
He felt that it would be a sort of expiation⁷ to go back to his wife. That was where he belonged. Rose must never again cross his path, have a place in his thoughts, or float, a soft beguiling⁸ image, in his memory. He had a wife. No matter what Berny was, she was the woman he had married. She had not deceived him. It was he who had done her a wrong, and he owed her a reparation.
 
In his raw state, his nerves still thrilling with the memory of that moment’s embrace, he saw Berny from her own point of view. He lost the memory of the complacent⁹ mistress in the picture of the unloved wife, on whose side there was much to be said. Morbidness¹⁰ colored his vision and exaggerated his sense of culpability¹¹. If she had an ugly temper, had it not been excited, fed and aggravated¹² by the treatment she had received from his family? If they had maintained a different attitude toward her, the poor girl might have been quite a pleasant, easy-going person. In all other ways she had been a good wife. Since their marriage, no other man had ever won a glance from her. She had often enough assured Dominick of that fact, and he, for his part, knew it to be true. She had struggled to keep a comfortable home on their small income. If she was not congenial to him—if her companionship was growing daily more disagreeable—was it all her fault? He had known her well before he married her, six months of the closest intimacy¹³ had made him acquainted with every foible of her character. It was no story of a youth beguiled¹⁴ and deceived by a mature woman in the unequal duel¹⁵ of a drawing-room courtship.
 
Her letter intensified¹⁶ his condition of self-accusation, chafed¹⁷ and irritated his soreness of shame till it became a weight of guilt¹⁸. It also stirred afresh the pity, which was the strongest feeling he had for her. It was the tenderest, the most womanly letter, Berny had ever written him. A note of real appeal sounded through it. She had humiliated¹⁹ herself, asked his pardon, besought²⁰ of him to return. As he thought of it, the vision of her alone in the flat, bereft²¹ of friends, dully devoid²² of any occupation, scornful of her old companions, fawningly²³ desirous of making new ones who refused to know her, smote²⁴ him with an almost sickening sense of its pitifulness. He felt sorry for her not alone because of her position, but because of what she was, what her own disposition²⁵ had made her. She would never change, her limitations were fixed²⁶. She would go on longing²⁷ for the same flesh-pots to the end, believing that they represented the highest and best.
 
Berny had realized that her letter was a skilful²⁸ and moving production, but she did not know that it was to gain a hundredfold in persuasive²⁹ power by falling on a guilty conscience. It put an end to Dominick’s revolt, it quenched³⁰ the last sparks of the mutinous³¹ rage which had taken him to Antelope³². That same afternoon in his frigid³³ bedroom at the hotel, he answered it. His reply was short, only a few lines. In these he stated that he would be back on the following Saturday, the tenderness of his injured foot making an earlier move impossible.
 
The letter reached Berny Friday and threw her into a state of febrile excitement. Her deadly dread³⁴ of Dominick’s returning to his family had never quite died out. It kept recurring³⁵, sweeping³⁶ in upon her in moods of depression, and making her feel chilled and frightened. Now she knew he was coming back to her, evidently not lovingly disposed—the letter was too terse³⁷ and cold for that—but, at any rate, he was coming home. Once there, she would set all her wits to work, use every art of which she was mistress, to make him forget the quarrel and enter in upon a new era of sweet reasonableness and mutual³⁸ consideration.
 
She set about this by cleaning the house and buying new curtains for the sitting-room³⁹. Such purifications and garnishments would have agreeably impressed her on a home-coming and she thought they would Dominick. In the past year she had become much more extravagant⁴⁰ than she had been formerly⁴¹, a characteristic which had arisen in her from a state of rasped irritation⁴² against the restricted means to which Mrs. Ryan’srancor condemned⁴³ her. She was quite heavily in debt to various tradespeople; and to dressmakers and milliners she owed sums that would have astounded⁴⁴ her husband had he known of them. This did not prevent her from still further celebrating his return by ordering a new dress in which to greet him and a new hat to wear the first time they went out together. How she was to pay for these adornments, she did not know nor care. The occasion was so important that it excused any extravagance, and Berny, in whose pinched, dry nature love of dress was a predominant passion, was glad to have a reason for adding new glories to her wardrobe.
 
On the Saturday morning she went out betimes. Inquiry⁴⁶ at the railway office told her that the train which connected with the branch line to Rocky Bar did not reach the city till six in the evening. She ordered a dinner of the choicest viands⁴⁷ and spent part of the morning passing from stall to stall in the market on Powell Street spying about for dainties that might add a last elaborating touch to the lengthy⁴⁸ menu. The afternoon was dedicated⁴⁹ to the solemn rites⁵⁰ of massaging⁵¹, manicuring, and hair-waving at a beauty doctor’s. On an ordinary occasion these unwonted exertions⁵² in the pursuit of good looks would have tired her, but to-day she was keyed to a pitch where she did not notice small outside discomforts⁵³.
 
Long before six she was dressed, and standing⁵⁴ before the mirror in her room she laid on the last perfecting touches with a short stick of hard red substance and a circular piece of mossy-looking white stuff, which she rubbed with a rotary⁵⁵ motion round and round her face. Her new dress of raspberry pink crape betrayed the hand of an expert in its gracefully-falling folds and the elegance⁵⁶ with which it outlined her slim, long-waisted shape. Her artificially-reddened hair waved back from her forehead in glossy⁵⁷ ripples⁵⁸; her face, all lines and hollows rubbed from it, looked fresh and youthful. With the subdued⁵⁹ light falling on her through the silk and paper lamp shades, she looked a very pretty woman, the darkness of her long brilliant eyes thrown into higher relief by the whiteness of her powdered face.
 
She was tremulously nervous. Every sound caused her to start and move to that part of the parlor⁶⁰ whence she could look down the long passageway to the stair-head. Large bunches of greenery were massed here in the angles of the hall and stood in the corners of the sitting-room. Bowls filled with violets and roses were set on the table and mantelpiece, and the scent⁶¹ of these flowers, sweet and delicate, mingled⁶² with the crude, powerful perfume that the woman’s draperies exhaled⁶³ with every movement. At intervals⁶⁴ she ran into her bedroom, seized the little, round, soft wad of white and rubbed it over her face with a quick concentric movement, drawing her upper lip down as she did so, which gave to her countenance⁶⁵ with its anxious eyes an exceedingly comical expression.
 
It was nearly seven o’clock when the bell rang. With a last hasty look in the glass, she ran down the passageway to the stair-head. It was necessary to descend⁶⁶ a few steps to a turn on the stairs from whence the lever that opened the door could be worked. As she stood on the small landing, thrown out in bright relief by a mass of dark leafage that stood in the angle of the wall, the door opened and Dominick entered. He looked up and saw her standing there, gaily⁶⁷ dressed, a brilliant, animated⁶⁸ figure, smiling down at him.
 
“Ah, Berny,” he said in a quiet, unemotional voice, “is that you?”
 
It was certainly not an enthusiastic greeting. A sensitive woman would have been shriveled by it, but Berny was not sensitive. She had realized from the start that she would probably have to combat the lingering surliness left by the quarrel. As Dominick ascended⁶⁹, her air of smiling welcome was marked by a bland⁷⁰ cheery unconsciousness of any past unpleasantness. She was not, however, as unconscious as she looked. She noted⁷¹ his heaviness of demeanor⁷², the tired expression of his lifted face. He came up the stairs slowly, not yet being completely recovered, and it added to the suggestion of reluctance⁷³, of difficult and spiritless approach, that seemed to encompass⁷⁴ him in an unseen yet distinctly-felt aura.
 
As he rose on a level with her, she stretched out her hands and, laying them on his shoulders, drew him toward her and kissed him. The coldness of his cheek, damp with the foggy night air, chilled the caress⁷⁵ and she drew back from him, not so securely confident in her debonair⁷⁶, smiling assurance. He patted her lightly on the shoulder by way of greeting and said,
 
“How are you? All right?”
 
“Oh, I’m all right,” she answered with brisk, determined⁷⁷ sprightliness⁷⁸. “You’re the one to ask about. You walk stiff, still. How are your feet?”
 
She was glad to turn her eyes away from his face. It looked very tired, and the slight smile with which he had greeted her stayed only on his lips and did not extend to his fatigued⁷⁹ eyes. He was evidently angry still, angry and unforgiving, and that he should be so, when she was so anxious to forget the ugly episode of the quarrel and be gay and friendly again, dashed her spirits and made her feel unsure of herself and upset. She was determined, however, to show him that she had forgotten all about it, and as he turned the angle of the stairway she thrust her hand inside[180] his arm and walked up beside him. They might have been a happy married couple, reunited after an absence, slowly coming up the stairs together arm in arm.
 
A few minutes later they were seated opposite each other at dinner. The little table glowed and gleamed, all Berny’s bravery of silver and glass mustered⁸⁰ for its adornment⁴⁵. The choice and delicate dinner began with a soup that Dominick especially liked, a fact which Berny hoped he would notice and mention. She was one of those women who have an unfailing memory for what people like to eat; a single expression of preference would remain in her mind for years. Dominick and she had not lived together for a month before she knew everything in the way of food he liked or disliked. When she was annoyed with him, or especially bitter against his mother, she would order nothing but dishes that he did not care for, and when she was in a more friendly mood, as to-night, she would take pains and time to arrange a menu composed of those he preferred. He usually did not notice these rewards and punishments, but Berny always thought he did and was “too stubborn,” as she expressed it to herself, to show that he was affected⁸¹ by them.
 
She observed to-night that he neither remarked, nor seemed to relish⁸² his food, but she made no comment, talking on in a breathless, lively way,asking questions of his trip, his accident, and the condition of his feet, as though there were no mortifying⁸³ recollections connected with the cause of his sudden departure. Her onl............