Explore "His Fortunate Grace" by Gertrude Atherton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
MR. FORBES was obliged to go that morning to Boston, to remain until the following evening. He did not see his wife before he left -- had not seen her since the interview in the library. She had locked herself in her room, and he was not the man to hammer on a sulking woman's door.
Several men he knew were in his car, and he talked with them until the train reached Boston. There he was engrossed; he had barely time to snatch a few hours for sleep, none for thought. But the next day, after taking his chair in the train for New York, and observing that he knew no one in the car, he became aware that the heart within him was heavy. He and his wife had quarrelled before, for she had a hot Southern temper, and he was by no means without gunpowder of his own; but none of their disputes had left behind it the flavour of this. That she should tolerate such a man as Bosworth, had disappointed him; that she should espouse his pretensions to their only child, filled him with disgust and something like terror; and her snobbery sickened him. But what had stabbed into the quick of his heart were her final words. He repeated them again and again, hoping to dull their edge.