Meanwhile, Mr. Reynolds had been luxuriating in a very unmistakable
sense of injury. To some persons there are a positive relief and
gratification in being really wronged: it raises their estimate of their
own importance: by virtue of their title to feel angry, disappointed, or
deceived, they can take their place in a higher than their ordinary
rank. So Mr. Reynolds, finding himself qualified to plead a clear case
of absolute and unwarrantable desertion, held up his head, and bore
himself with becoming dignity.
His dignity did not, however, interfere with his seeking to drown his
slight in the good, old-fashioned way. He solaced himself beyond
prudence with the varied products of the hotel bar, and then settled
himself solitary in his sleigh and jingled homeward. His road took him
past the Parsonage, and he enlivened the lonely way by scraps of songs,
reflections upon the perfidy of women, and portentous yawns at intervals
of two or three minutes. In fact, by the time he had gone a mile the
most predominant sensation he had was sleepiness, and half a mile more
came very near making a second Endymion of him. From this, however, he
was preserved by the very sudden stoppage of his sleigh, which threw him
on his knees against the dasher, and forcibly knocked his eyes open. He
rolled over to the ground, but, happening to light on his feet, he stood
unsteadily erect, and asked a very tall and powerful man, who was
holding his horse's head, when he was going to let that drop?
Receiving no intelligible answer, he stumbled in the powerful man's
direction, perhaps contemplating the performance of some deed of
desperate valor. Meanwhile the object of his hostility had relinquished
his hold of the horse, and appeared kneeling on the ground, supporting
the form of a woman, dressed in a tasteful white dress, with dark,
disordered hair lying around her colorless face.