It does me good. It
feels like stretchin' your legs in front of a good warm fire."
The centre, the compelling influence of this new state of
affairs, was undoubtedly Estrella, and yet it is equally to be
doubted whether she stood for more than the suggestion. Senor
Johnson conducted his entire life with reference to his wife.
His waking hours were concerned only with the thought of her, his
every act revolved in its orbit controlled by her influence.
Nevertheless she, as an individual human being, had little to do
with it. Senor Johnson referred his life to a state of affairs
he had himself invented and which he called the married state,
and to a woman whose attitude he had himself determined upon and
whom be designated as his wife. The actual state of affairs--
whatever it might be--he did not see; and the actual woman
supplied merely the material medium necessary to the reality of
his idea. Whether Estrella's eyes were interested or bored,
bright or dull, alert or abstracted, contented or afraid, Senor
Johnson could not have told you. He might have replied promptly
enough--that they were happy and loving. That is the way Senor
Johnson conceived a wife's eyes.
The routine of life, then, soon settled.
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