At times her happiness became so intense that she had a superstitious dread lest at the last moment Providence might thwart her. She went thrice a week to church, where she promised to be a faithful and exemplary wife if only Fargus might be permitted to return successful, hoping by this bargain to conciliate God and range him on her side, for she was a bit uneasy over her past. Also it must be admitted that her conception of Paradise had a flavor of upper Fifth Avenue.
The culmination of these weeks of delirium arrived in a visit to the opera. It was an intoxication such as she had never known. Ensconced in the glittering orchestra, the display on the stage, the surge and the sweep of the immense music, awakened all her senses. Radiant and palpitating she leaned back languidly, her glance traveling among the boxes, back and forth over the bewildering horseshoe, dreaming of the day when she too would take her place among these princesses of fashion,--and it took her quite a while to decide which box she would occupy. During the second entre-acte she joined the parade in the foyer. Feeling that the excitement gave her a moment of unusual brilliancy, she placed herself in prominence, wondering anxiously if she would be noticed among all the gorgeous toilettes. To her delight she drew many glances and on leaving had the delicious satisfaction of hearing a voice say in a whisper half impertinent and half admiration:
"Oh, when I can dress as they do!" she thought with a sigh of delight, "they will know who I am!"
The incense of this flattery caused her to imagine the conquests she should then number--little infidelities to Fargus, a number of which, despite all her vows, she committed in that moment of ecstasy. On leaving the opera she took a carriage for the mere vanity of being obsequiously handed through the door. Then, arrived home, she paid the driver double his fare in the embarrassment she felt that he should set her down in such an unfashionable quarter.
The next morning, remembering with alarm the infidelities she had imagined to her poor husband, she hastened to church where she renounced them in trembling, hoping perhaps that the divine Providence had not noticed such a minuscule frailty.