Vain Fortune Part 26

She was something like himself--that was why he had married her. We are attracted by what is like ourselves. Emily's pa.s.sion might have stirred him. Now he would have to settle down to live with Julia, and their similar natures would grow more and more like one another. Then, turning on his thoughts, he dismissed them. They were the morbid feverish fancies of an exceptional, of a terrible night. He opened the window quietly so as not to awaken his wife. And in the melancholy greyness of the dawn he looked down into the street and wondered what the end would be.

He did not think that he would live long. Disappointed men--those who have failed in their ambition--do not live to make old bones. There were men like him in every profession--the arts are crowded with them. He had met barristers and soldiers and clergy-men, just like himself. One hears of their deaths--failure of the heart's action, paralysis of the brain, a hundred other medical causes--but the real cause is, lack of appreciation.

He would hang on for another few years, no doubt; during that time he must try to make his wife happy. His duty was now to be a good husband, at all events, there was that.

His wife lay asleep in the arm-chair, and fearing she might catch cold, he came into the room closing the window very gently behind him.

THE END