The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1896-05-21
PART I.
CHAPTER I.

As Clarence Brant, president of the
Robles Land company, and husband OF
the rich widow Of John Peyton, of the
Robles ranch, mingled with the outgo-
ing audience of the Cosmopolitan thea
Ter at San Francisco, he elected the
usual smiling mods and recognition due
TO his good looks and good fortune. But
ashe hurriedly slipped through the still
lingering winters rain into the smart
coupe that was awaiting him, and gave
the order "homc," the word struck him
with peculiarly ironical significance.
His home was a handsome one, and
lacked nothing Experimentation
fort, but he had gone to the theater to
evade its hollow loneliness. Norwas it
because his wife was not there, for he
had miserable consciousness that her
temporary absence had nothing to do
with his homelessness.
The distraction of the theater over,
that dull, vague, but aching sense OF
loneliness which was daily growing up
IN him, returned with greater vigor.
He leaned back in the coupe, and
yloomily reflected.
He had been married scarcely year,
vet even in the illusions of the honey
moon, the woman, older than himself
ard the widow of his old patron, had
Elff tlnconsciously reasserted herself,
aud slipped back into the domination of
her old position.
II was at first pleasant enough-this
half maternal protectorate, which is
even apt to mingle with the affections
of younger women and Clarence in his
easy half-feminine intuition of the sex,
yielded, as the strong are apt to yield,
through the very consciousness of their
own superiority. But this is quality
the weaker are not apt to recognize, and
tie woman who has once tasted equal
power with her husband, not only does
not easily relegate it, but even makes
its continuance test of the affections.
The usual triumphant feminine con-
clusion: Then you no longer love me, :"
had in Clarence's brief experience gone
even farther and reached its inscruta-
Bile climax-"then no longer love you"
although shown only in momentary
hardening of the eye and voice. Andadd-
ed to this was his sudden but confused
remembrance that he had seen that eye
and heard that voice in marital alterca-
tion during Judge Peyton's life, and
that he himself, her boy partisan, had
sympathized with her.
Yet, strange to say, this had given
him more pain than her occasional
other reversions to the past-to her old
suspicious OF him when he was a youth
full protege OF her husbands, and a
presumed suitor Of her adopted daugh-
terSusy.
High natures are more apt to forgive
wrong done to themselves than any alb
stract injustice. And her capricious
tyranny over her dependents and serv-
ants, or an unreasoning enmity to
neighbor or friend, outraged his finer
sense more than her own misconception
of himself. Nor did he dream that this
was thing mostwomen seldom under
stand, or understanding. ever forgive.
The coupe ratified over the stones or
swirled through the muddy pools of the
main thoroughfares. Newspapers and
telegraphie offices were still brilliantly
lit, and crowds were gathered among
the bulletin boards. He knew that news
had arrived from Washington thateven-
ing OF the first active outbreaks ofseces-
sion, and that the city was breathless
with excitement.
Had he not just come from the thea
ter where certain insignificant allu-
sions in the play had been suddenly
caught up and cheered or hissed by
hitherto unknown partisans, to the
dumb establishment of a majority of the
audience comfortably settled to money
getting and their own affairs alone?
Had he not applauded, albeit half scorn-
fully, the pretty actress-his old play
mate Susy-who had audaciously and
all anonymously waved the American
flag in their faces?
Yesl he had known it; had lived for
the last few weeks in an atmosphere
electrically surcharged with it--and yet
it had chiefly affected him in his person
al homelessness. For his wife was a
southerner, born stakeholder, and
secessionist, whose noted prejudices to
the north had even outrun her late hus-
bands politics. o
! At first the piquancy and recklessness
Of her opinionative speech amused him
as part of her Characteristic flavor, or
as lingering youthfulness, which the
maturer intellect always pardons.
! He had never taken her politics seri-
ously-why should he? With her heae
on his shoulder he had listened to her
extravagant against thenorth;
he had forgiven her outrageous indict-
mentsof his caste and his associates for
the sake Of the imperious but handsome
lips that uttered them.
But when he was compelled to listen
to her words echoed and repeated by
her friends and family; when he found
that with the clannishness of her race
she had drawn closer to them in this
controversy-that she depended upon
them for her intelligence and informa-
tion rather than upon him--he had
awakened to the reality Of his situation
He had borne the illusions Of her