This phase of John's character, its least amiable characteristic, which
marred it amid many excellent qualities, was not wholly unknown to
Melissa. She was by far the more clear-headed of the two, and she
understood her lover with much greater acuteness than he was able to
bring to the task of comprehending her. It was from intelligent
perception and not merely from the feminine instinct for making
excuses, that she said to herself that John was worn out with the
strain of burdens long and uncomplainingly borne; and she was, it might
be added, near enough to the primitive savagery of the rustic New
Englanders of the last generation, to find it perfectly a matter of
course that a man should make of his womenfolk a sort of scapegoat upon
whom to visit his wrath against the sins alike of fate and of his
fellows.
She waited for John to relent from his unjust anger, but she did not
protest, and when he chose once more to be gracious unto his handmaiden
he would be met only with faithful affection and with no reproaches.
From the abstract standpoint, nothing could be farther astray than the
fulness and freedom of Milly's forgivenesses; practically, this
illogical feminine weakness made life easier and happier, not alone for
everybody about her, but for herself as well. Doubtless such a yielding
disposition tempted her lover to injustices he would never have
ventured with a more spirited woman, but after all her forgiveness was
so divine as almost to turn the transgression into a virtue for causing
it.
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