In the days that followed he saw nothing of Gertrudis, but a good deal of Edith Cortlandt.  She had redeemed her promise of getting him a good horse-something rare in this country-and he was grateful for the exercise, which came as a welcome relief from his indoor toil.  They rode almost daily; he dined at her house, and once again made one of her party at the opera.  Soon their old friendly intercourse was going on as if it had never been interrupted.

As for Edith, this unsatisfying, semi-public intimacy came to be quite as much a pain as a pleasure to her.  During these past few weeks she had been plunged in a mental turmoil, the signs of which she had concealed with difficulty.  She had fought with herself; she had tried to reason; she had marshalled her pride, but all in vain.  At last she awoke to the terrifying certainty that she was in love.  It had all begun with that moment of impulsive surrender at Taboga.  The night following had been terrible to her.  In its dark hours she had seen her soul for the first time, and the glimpse she got frightened her.  Following this, she became furious with herself, then resentful toward Anthony; next she grew desperate and reckless.

She began to look upon her husband with a quickened curiosity, and found him a stranger.  For years she had made allowance for his weaknesses, ignoring them as she ignored his virtues; but never before had he appeared so colorless, so insignificant, above all so alien.  She had barely tolerated him hitherto, but now she began to despise him.

If Cortlandt was aware of her change of feeling and its cause, his method of dealing with her showed some keenness.  Silent contempt was what she could least endure from him of all men; yet this was just what his manner toward her expressed-if it expressed anything.  Beyond those words as they were leaving the island, he had said nothing, had never referred to the incident, had not so much as mentioned Anthony’s name unless forced to do so, and this offended her unreasonably.  She caught him regarding her strangely at times with a curious, faltering expression, but he was so icy in his reserve, he yielded so easily to her predominance, that she could divine nothing and turned the more fiercely to her inward struggle.  Even if he did suspect, what then?  It was no affair of his; she was her own mistress.  She had given him all he possessed, she had made a man of him.  He was her creature, and had no rights beyond what she chose to give.  They saw less and less of each other.  He became more formal, more respectfully unhusbandlike.  He spent few daylight hours in the house, coming and going as he pleased, frequenting the few clubs of the city, or riding alone.  On more than one occasion he met her and Anthony on their horses.  Only before others, or at their frequent political councils, were they quite the same as they had been.

Of Anthony, on the other hand, she arranged to see more than ever, flattering him by a new deference in her manner, making him feel always at ease with her, watching him vainly for the least sign of awakening desire.  In their frequent rides they covered most of the roads about the city, even to the ruins of old Panama.  Then they began to explore the by-paths and trails.