The Long Way by Mary Imlay Taylor

Belhaven came back from town rather late in the afternoon. He had ridden out on the front seat of an open car, talking in a desultory way to the gripman, chiefly because it seemed to afford him a perverse pleasure to disregard the large sign overhead which forbade conversation with the motorman. He was in a mood to enjoy breaking all rules in a puny effort to feel independent. For, if the truth be told, he had felt for months as if Astry had caught him and chained him up, much as the infidel Turks used to chain their Christian captives to the oars when their galleys went into battle.

Not even a long day at the club had relaxed his mood and he was far from feeling as gay and debonair as he had appeared to Eva when she had observed him through the leaves of the rhododendrons. He was deeply vexed with himself, ashamed of the part he had played, disgusted that he had sacrificed so much for a feeling that had proved to be so ephemeral, that he had given up his own freedom and even his self-respect to shield a woman who could toss him aside, at the first alarm, as easily as she would have discarded a soiled glove.