A few nights after this, there was a full moon. Dominick, walking home from the bank, saw it at the end of the street’s vista¹, a large, yellowish-pink disk floating up into the twilight². The air about it was suffused³ with a misty⁴ radiance, and its wide glowing face, having a thin look like a transparency of paper with a light behind it, seemed, though not yet clear of the housetops, already to dominate the sky. The evening was warm, like the early summer in other climates; and Dominick, walking slowly and watching the great yellow sphere deepening in color as it swam majestically⁵ upward, thought of evenings like this in the past when he had been full of the joy of life and had gone forth⁶ in the spirit of love and adventure.  
The sight of his home dispelled⁷ these memories and brought upon him the sense of his daily environment and its distastefulness. The determination to accept his fate which had been with him on his return from Antelope⁸ had of late been[271] shaken by stirrings of rebellion. Uplifted by the thought of his love for a woman hopelessly removed from him, but who would always be a lodestar to worship reverently⁹ and to guide him up difficult paths, he had been able to face his domestic tragedy with the high resolution of the martyr¹¹. But this exalted¹² condition was hard to maintain in the friction¹³ of daily life with Berny. Before, she had merely been a disagreeable companion of whom he had to make the best. Now, she was that, intensified¹⁴ by a comparison which threw out her every fault and petty vulgarity into glaring prominence¹⁵. And more than that—she was the angel with the flaming sword, the self-incurred, invited, domesticated¹⁶ angel—the angel come to stay—who barred the way to Paradise.
 
She seemed to him to have changed within the last week. When he had first come home from Antelope she had been Berny in one of her less familiar but recognizable moods—Berny trying to be agreeable, wearing her best clothes every day, ordering the things for dinner he liked, talking loudly and incessantly¹⁷. Then, quite suddenly, he became aware of a change in her. She grew silent, absent-minded, morose¹⁹. He had tried to make their lives easier by always being polite and carefully considerate of her and she had responded to it. For the last few days she had made no effort to assist him in this laudable[272] design. Instead, she had been unresponsive, preoccupied²⁰, uninvitingly snappish in her replies. Several times he had been forced into the novel position of “making conversation” throughout dinner, exerting his wits for subjects to talk about that he might lift the gloom and elicit²¹ some response from the mute, scowling²² woman opposite.
 
To-night, the period of ill-humor seemed over. Berny was not only once again her animated²³ self, she was almost feverishly²⁴ garrulous²⁵. Dinner had not progressed past the fish when she began to question him on his recent experiences at Antelope. The subject had come up several times since his return, but for the last few days he had had a respite²⁶ from it, and hoped its interest had worn away. She had many queries²⁷ to make about Bill Cannon²⁸, and from the father it was but a natural transition to the daughter, so much the more attractive of the pair. Dominick was soon inwardly writhing²⁹ under an exceedingly ingenious and searching catechism.
 
Had he been less preoccupied by his own acute discomfort³⁰, he might have noticed that Berny herself gave evidence of disturbance³¹. As she prodded³² him with her questions, her face was suffused with unusual color, and the eagerness of her curiosity shone through the carelessness with which she sought to veil it. Certain queries she accompanied with a piercing glance of investigation³³, watching with hungry sharpness the[273] countenance³⁴ of the persecuted³⁵ man. Fearful of angering her, or, still worse, of arousing her suspicions, Dominick bore the examination with all the fortitude³⁶ he had, but he rose from the table with every nerve tingling³⁷, rasped and galled³⁸ to the limit of endurance.
 
He did not come into the den¹⁸ immediately but roamed about, into the parlor³⁹, down the passage, and into his own room. He spread the scent⁴⁰ of his cigar and its accompanying films of smoke all through the flat, a thing that Berny would never have ordinarily allowed. To-night she was too occupied in listening to his prowling steps to bother about minor⁴¹ rules and regulations. She saw in his restlessness a disturbance evoked⁴² by her questionings.
 
“Aren’t you coming into the den?” she called, as she heard him pacing steadily⁴³ along the passageway.
 
“No,” he called back. “The moonlight’s shining in at every window. It makes me restless. I don’t feel like sitting still.”
 
She sat on the divan⁴⁴, a paper spread before her face, but her eyes were slanted⁴⁵ sidewise, unblinking in the absorption of her attention. Suddenly she heard a rattling⁴⁶ sound which she knew to be from the canes⁴⁸ and umbrellas in the hat-rack. She cast away the paper, and, drawing herself to the edge of the divan, peered down the passage. Dominick was standing⁴⁹ by the hat-rack, his hat[274] on the back of his head, his hand feeling among the canes.
 
“You’ve got your hat on,” she called in a high key of surprise. “You’re not going out?”
 
“Yes, I am,” he answered, drawing out the cane⁴⁷ he wanted. “It’s a fine night, and I’m going for a walk.”
 
“For a walk?”—there was hesitancy in her tone, and for a horrible moment, he thought she was going to suggest coming with him. “Where are you going to?”
 
“Oh, I don’t know, just prowl about. I want some exercise.”
 
“Are you going to your mother’s?” she ventured, not without some timidity.
 
“No,” he said, “I’m not going anywhere in particular. Good night.”
 
She sat forward, listening to his descending⁵⁰ feet and the bang of the hall door. A glance at the window showed her it was, as he said, a fine night, deluged⁵¹ with the radiance of the moon. Probably he was just going out for a walk and not to see anybody. He was always doing queer things like that. But,—Berny sat staring in front of her, biting her nails and thinking. Uneasiness had been planted in her by Dominick’s flight to Antelope. More poignant⁵² uneasiness had followed that first attack. Now the bitter corrosive⁵³ of jealousy⁵⁴ began to grow and expand in her. Sitting huddled⁵⁵ on the divan, she thought of[275] Dominick, walking through the moonlight to Rose Cannon, and another new and griping pang⁵⁶ laid hold upon her.
 
Outside, Dominick walked slowly, keeping to the smaller and less frequented streets. It was a wonderful night, as still as though the moon had exerted some mesmeric influence upon the earth. Everything was held motionless and without sound in a trance-like quietude. In the gardens not a blossom stirred. Where leaves extended from undefined darknesses of foliage⁵⁷, they stood out, stem and fiber⁵⁸, with a carven distinctness, their shadows painted on the asphalt walks in inky silhouette⁵⁹. There was no lamplight to warm the clear, still pallor of the street’s vista. It stretched between the fronts of houses, a river of light, white and mysterious, like a path in a dream.
 
It was a night for lovers, for trysts⁶⁰, and for whispered vows⁶¹. Dominick walked slowly, feeling himself an outsider in its passionate⁶² enchantment⁶³. The scents⁶⁴ that the gardens gave out, and through which he passed as through zones of sweetness, were part of it. So were the sounds that rose from the blotted⁶⁵ vagueness of white figures on a porch, from impenetrable depths of shadow—laughter, low voices, little cries. In the distance people were singing snatches of a song that rose and fell, breaking out suddenly and as suddenly dropping into silence.
 
[276]His course was not aimless, and took him by a slow upward ascent⁶⁶ to that high point of the city, whence the watcher can look down on the bay, the rugged⁶⁷, engirdling hills, and the hollow of North Beach. Here he stood, resting on his cane, and gazing on the far-flung panorama⁶⁸, with the white moon sailing high and its reflection glittering across the water. Along the bases of the hills the

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