She noticed with spasms of terror that Miss Tremont was failing. The

rush and worry of a lifetime had worn the blood white, and the

nerve-force down like an old wharf pile. But Miss Tremont would not

admit that she had lost an ounce of strength. She arose at the same hour

and toiled until late. When Patience begged her to take care of herself,

she became almost querulous, and all Patience could do was to anticipate

her in every possible way. But when school reopened she had little time

for anything but study. She was to finish in June, and the last year’s

course was very difficult.

She graduated with flying colours, and Miss Tremont was so proud and

excited that she took a day’s vacation. A week later Patience hinted

that she thought she should be earning her own living; but Miss Tremont

would not even discuss the subject. She fell into a rage every time it

was broached, and Patience, who would have rebelled, had Miss Tremont

been younger and stronger, submitted: she knew it would not be for long.

XII

Patience was languid all summer, and lay about in the woods, when she

could, reading little and thinking much. Her school books put away

forever, she felt for the first time that she was a woman, but did not

take as much interest in herself as she had thought she should. She

speculated a good deal upon her future career as a newspaper woman, and

expended two cents every morning upon the New York “Day.” But she forgot

to study it in the new interest it created: she had just the order of

mind to succumb to the fascination of the newspaper, and she read the

“Day’s” report of current history with a keener pleasure than even the

great records of the past had induced. She longed for a companion with

whom to talk over the significant tendencies of the age, and gazed upon

Beverly Peele’s dome-like brow with a sigh.

Once, in the Sunday issue, she came upon a column and a half devoted to

Rosita, “The Sweetheart of the Public,” “The Princess Royal of Opera

Bouffe.” The description of the young prima donna’s home life, personal

characteristics, and footlight triumphs, was further embellished by a

painfully _décolleté_ portrait, a lace night gown, a pair of wonderfully

embroidered stockings, and a rosary.

Patience read the article twice, wondering why fame realised looked so

different from the abstract quality of her imagination.

“Somehow it seems a sort of tin halo,” she thought. Then her thoughts

drifted back to Monterey, and recalled it with startling vividness.

“Still even if I haven’t forgotten it, it is like the memory of another

life. Its only lasting effect has been to make me hate what is coarse

and sinful; and dear auntie, even if she hasn’t converted me, has

developed all my good.

“I wonder if Rosita has been in love, and if that is the reason she has

forgotten me. But she hasn’t married, so perhaps it’s only adulation

that has driven everything else out of her head.” And then with her eyes

on the river, which under the heavy sky looked like a stream of

wrinkling lead from which a coating of silver had worn off in places,

she fell to dreaming of Beverly Peele and an ideal existence in which

they travelled and read and assured each other of respectful and

rarefied affection.

Early in the winter the influenza descended upon America. Mr. Peele, his

wife wrote, was one of the first victims, and the entire family took him

to Florida. One night, a month later, Miss Tremont returned from Hog

Heights and staggered through her door.

“Oh,” she moaned, as Patience rushed forward and caught her in her arms,

“I feel so strangely. I have pains all over me, and the queerest feeling

in my knees.”

“It’s the grippe,” said Patience, who had read its history in the “Day.”

She put Miss Tremont to bed, and sent for the doctor. The old lady was

too weak to protest, and swallowed the medicines submissively. She

recovered in due course, and one day slipped out and plodded through the

snow to Hog Heights. She was brought home unconscious, and that night

was gasping with pneumonia.

There was no lack of nurses. Miss Beale and Mrs. Watt, who had helped to

care for her during the less serious attack, returned at once, and many

others called at intervals during the day and night.

Patience sat constantly by the bed, staring at the face so soon to be

covered from all sight. She wanted to cry and scream, but could not. Her

heart was like lead in her breast.

At one o’clock on the second night, she and Miss Beale were alone in the

sick room. Mrs. Watt was walking softly up and down the hall without.

Miss Tremont was breathing irregularly, and Patience bent over her with

white face. Miss Beale began to sob.

“Is it not terrible, terrible,” she ejaculated, “that she

should die like this, she whose deathbed should have been so

beautiful,—unconscious, drugged—morphine, which is as accursed as

whisky—”

“I am glad of it. It would be more horrible to see her suffer.”

“I don’t want to see her suffer—dear, dear Miss Tremont. But she should

have died in the full knowledge that she was going to God. Oh! Oh!” she

burst out afresh. “How I envy her! It’s my only, only sin, but I can’t

help envying those who are going to heaven. I can’t wait. I do so want

to see the beautiful green pastures and the still waters—and oh, how I

want to talk with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!”

Patience flung her head into her lap and burst into a fit of laughter.

XIII

An hour later she went downstairs and turned up all the lights. Mrs.

Watt had gone to the next house to telephone for the undertakers. When

she returned she went upstairs to Miss Beale. Patience could hear the

two women praying. That was the only sound in the terrible stillness.

She paced up and down, wringing her hands and gasping occasionally. Her

sense of desolation was appalling, although as yet she but half realised

her bereavement.

Suddenly she heard the sound of runners on the crisp snow. They stopped

before the gate. She ran shuddering to the window. The moon flooded the

white earth. Two tall black shadows came down the path. They trod as if

on velvet. Even on the steps and porch they made no sound. They knocked

as death may knock on a human soul, lightly, meaningly. Patience dragged

herself to the door and opened it. The long narrow black men entered and

bent their heads solemnly. Patience raised her shaking hand, and pointed

to the floor above. The men of death bowed again, and stole upward like

black ghosts. In a few moments they stole down again and out and away.

Patience rushed frantically through the rooms to the kitchen, where she

fell upon Ellen, dozing by the fire, and screamed and laughed until the

terrified woman flung a pitcher of water on her, then carried her

upstairs and put her to bed.

XIV

A week later Patience wandered restlessly about the lonely house. The

hundreds of people that had thronged it had gone at last, even Miss

Beale and Mrs. Watt.

She had cried until she had no tears left, and rebelled until reason

would hear no more. Her nerves felt blunt and worn down.

Yesterday Miss Tremont’s lawyer had told her that after a few

unimportant bequests she was to have the income of the dead woman’s

small estate until she married, after which she would have nothing and

the Temperance cause all. She was therefore exempt from the pettiest and

severest of life’s trials. Miss Tremont had also left a letter, begging

her to devote herself to a life of charity and reform. But Patience had

at last revolted. She realised how empty had been her part, how

torrential the impulsion of Miss Tremont.

The great world outside of Mariaville pressed upon her imagination,

gigantic, rainbow-hued, alluring. It beckoned with a thousand fingers,

and all her complex being responded. She longed for a talent with which

to add to its beauty, and thought no ill of it.

She had sat up half the night thinking, and this morning she felt doubly

restless and lonely. She wanted to go away at once, but as yet she had

made no plans; and plans were necessary. She was too tired to go to Mr.

Field and apply for work; and she knew that her delicate appearance

would not commend itself to his approval. She went to the mirror in the

best spare bedroom and regarded herself anxiously. Her black-robed

figure seemed very tall and thin, her face white and sharp.

“Even red bows—” she began; then her memory tossed up Rosita. “Oh,” she

thought, “if I could only see her,—see some one I care a little for. I

believe I’ll go—there may have been some reason—her letters may have

miscarried—I must see somebody.”

She ran upstairs, put on her outing things, and walked rapidly to the

station. The sharp air electrified her blood. The world was full of

youth and hope once more. She forgot her bereavement for the hour. She

hoped Rosita would ask her to visit her: the popular young prima donna

must have drawn many brilliant people about her.

When she reached New York she inquired her way to “Soper’s Opera House,”

obtained Rosita’s address, and took the elevated train up town. She

found the great apartment house with little difficulty, and was

enraptured with its marble floors and pillars, its liveried servants and

luxurious elevator.

“I certainly had rich ancestors,” she thought, “and I am sure they were

swells. I have a natural affinity for all this sort of thing.”

She was landed at the very top of the house. The elevator boy directed

her attention to a button, then slid down and out of sight, leaving

Patience with the delightful sensation of having stepped upon a new

stratum, high and away from the vast terrestrial cellar.

A trim French maid opened the door. She stared at Patience, and looked

disinclined to admit her. But Patience pushed the door back with

determined hand.

“I wish to see La Rosita,” she said in French.

“But madame is not receiving to-day.”

“She will see me, I am sure. Tell her that Miss Sparhawk is here.”

The woman admitted her reluctantly, and left her standing in an

anteroom, passing between heavy portières. Patience followed, and

entered a large drawing-room furnished with amber satin and ebony: a

magnificent room, heavy with the perfume of great baskets of flowers,

and filled with costly articles of decoration. The carpet was of amber

velvet. Not a sound of street penetrated the heavy satin curtains.

An indefinable sensation stole over Patience’s mind, a ghost whose

lineaments were blurred, yet familiar. She felt an impulse to turn and

run, then twitched her shoulders impatiently, and approaching other

portières, parted them and glanced into the room beyond.

It was evidently a boudoir, a fragrant fairy-like thing of rose and

lace.

In a deep chair, clad in a _robe de chambre_ of rose-coloured silk,

flowing open over a lace smock and petticoat, lay Rosita. Her dense

black hair was twisted carelessly on top of her head and confined with a

jewelled dagger. One tiny foot, shod in a high-heeled slipper of

rose-coloured silk, was conspicuous on a low _pouf_. The flush of youth

was in her cheek, its scarlet in her mouth. The large white lids lay

heavily on the languorous eyes. In one hand she held a pink cigarette in

a jewelled holder. She spoke in a low tantalising voice to a man who sat

before her, leaning eagerly forward.

The maid had evidently not succeeded in gaining her attention. Patience,

conquering another impulse to run, pushed the hangings aside and

entered. Rosita sprang to her feet, the blood flashing to her hair; but

her eyes expanded with pleasure.

“Patita! Patita!” she stammered, then caught Patience in her arms. As

both girls looked as if about to weep, the man hurriedly departed.

The girls hugged each other as of old; then Rosita divested Patience of

her wraps and told the astonished maid to take them out of sight.

“Now that you are here, you shall stay,” she said, “stay a long, long

while. Have you had luncheon?”

“No—but I’m not—yes, I am, though, come to think of it. Get me

something to eat. Rosita, how good it is to see you again! Why, why

didn’t you write to me?”

“O—h; I will tell you, perhaps; but you must have luncheon first. I

take a late breakfast, just after rising, so it will be a few minutes

before yours is ready.” She rang a bell and gave an order to the maid,

then pushed Patience into the deepest and softest chair in the room.

“Now,” she said, smiling affectionately, “lie back and be comfortable;

you look tired. Oh, Patita, I am so glad to see you. Isn’t it like old

times?”

With a grace which long practice had made a fine art, she sank upon one

end of a divan, and back among a mass of cushions. Her white arms lay

along the pillows in such careless wise as to best exhibit their

perfection; her head dropped backward slightly, revealing the round

throat. The attitude was so natural as to suggest that she had ceased to

pose.

Patience stared at her, wondering if it could be the same Rosita. All

the freshness of youth was in that beautiful face and round voluptuous

form, but she looked years and years and years older than the Rosita of

Monterey. Patience suddenly felt young and foolish and green. The world

that had been so great and wonderful to her imagination seemed to have

shrunken to a ball, to be tossed from one to the other of those white

idle hands.

“What has changed you so?” she asked abruptly.

Rosita gave the low delicious laugh of which Patience had read in the

New York “Day.” She relit her cigarette and blew a soft cloud.

“I will tell you after luncheon. You are the only person I would never

fib to. I believe those grey eyes of yours are the only honest eyes in

the world. Why are you in black?”

Patience told her, and was drawn on to speak of herself and her life.

Rosita shuddered once or twice, an adorable little French shudder, and

cast upward her glittering hands, whose nails Patience admired even more

than their jewels.

“_Dios de mi alma!_” she cried finally. “What an existence!—I cannot

call it life. I should have jumped into the river. That life would drive

me mad, and I do not believe that it suits you either.”

She spoke with a Spanish accent, and with the affected precision of a

foreigner that has carefully learned the English language. Her monotony

of inflection was more effective than animation.

“No, it doesn’t,” said Patience, “and I have no intention of pursuing

it. I’m going to be a newspaper woman.”

Rosita gave forth a sound that from any other throat would have been a

shriek.

“A newspaper woman! And then you will come and interview me. How droll!

I shall have to become eccentric, so that I can furnish you with

‘stories,’ as they call them. I have been pumped dry. When the newspaper

women have run out of everything else they come to me, and they love me

because I am good-natured, and turn my things upside down for them. I

never refuse to see them, so they have never written anything horrid

about me. Oh, I can tell you I have learned a great many lessons since I

left Monterey. But here is your luncheon. While you are eating it I will

do something for you that I have never done for any one else off the

stage: I will sing to you.”

The maid placed a silver tray on a little table, and while Patience ate

of creamed oysters and broiled partridge, Rosita sang as the larks of

paradise may sing when angels awake with the dawn. Once Patience glanced

hastily upward, half expecting to see the notes falling in a golden

shower. When she expressed her admiration, Rosita’s red lips smiled

slowly away from the white sharp little teeth.

“Do you like it, Patita _mia_?” she asked with bewitching graciousness.

“Yes, I can sing. I have the world at my feet.”

She resumed her languid attitude on the divan. “_Bueno_,” she said, “now

I am going to tell you all about it. People are always a little heavy

after eating; I waited on purpose. But you must promise not to move

until I get through. Will you?”

“Yes,” said Patience, uncomfortably. “I hope it is nothing very

dreadful.”

“That all depends upon the way you look at things. It will seem odd to

tell it to you. You used to be the one to do what you felt like and tell

other people that if they did not like it they could do the other thing;

but I suppose you are W. C. T. U’d.”

“No, I’m not. Go on.”

“Well, I will.” She paused and laughed lightly. “Funny world. We do not

usually tell this sort of story to a woman, but you and I are different.

_Bueno._

“I went to Paris and studied hard. Yes, I am lazy yet, but I had made up

my mind to be a great, great, great success. I had what in insane people

is called the fixed idea, and the American in me conquered the Spanish.

Everybody praised my voice. No one said it was the greatest voice in the

world, nor even better than two or three others over there; but I had no

discouragement. I attracted a great deal of attention from men, but the

_dueña_ never let them get a word with me, and I did not care. I used to

wonder at the stories told about some of the other girls, and did not

half understand. Two sold themselves; but why? with a fortune in one’s

throat. Others fell in love, and talked about the temperament of the

artist, but I could not understand that nonsense either.

“_Bueno_, at the end of the time Soper came over and bought me eight

trunks full of the most beautiful clothes you ever saw,—mostly for the

stage, but lots for the house and street. He said I was a first-class

investment, and worth the outlay. When he heard me sing he shook all

over. I ought to tell you that I had been kept on short allowance, and

had had very dowdy clothes, which broke my heart.

“_Bueno_, we came home. On the steamer, Soper treated me like a father,

but never let me talk to a man. Either he or the _dueña_ was at my heels

all the time. He is a coarse-looking man, but I really liked him because

he had been so good to me, and there was something very attractive about

him. When we reached New York the _dueña_ left us. She said she was

going straight to Philadelphia to her home. Soper and I got in another

cab and drove to an apartment on Broadway. I did not know until the next

day that it was his apartment. That was in the evening. The next

morning, while I was at a late breakfast, he sent me a note, saying that

he would call in an hour and have a business talk with me. I was

practising my scales when he came in, and he clapped his hands and

offered me a chair. He drew one up for himself, and then said in a

perfectly business-like voice:—

“‘When I ran across you I knew that you only needed training to become a

queen of opera bouffe, and to make a fortune for some one besides

yourself. I also saw that you were going to become a beautiful woman. I

made up my mind that I would own both the woman and the artist. Don’t

look like a little tigress—still, I’m glad you can look that way,—you

may be able to do Carmen yet. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not a

villain, merely a practical man with an eye to beauty. I have no idea of

letting you get under the influence of any other man,—not even if you

weren’t so pretty. Let me console you by telling you that for the sort

of woman you are there is no escape. You were made to drive men mad, and

for the comic opera stage. That sort of combination might as well get

down to business as early in the game as possible: it saves time.

“‘Had I never discovered you, you would have drifted from company to

company, gone the pace with nothing to show for it, and worn out your

youth at one-night stands. I saved you from a terrible fate. You know

the rest. You know what you owe me. You have developed even beyond my

hopes, but—mark you this—I have not advertised you in any way. You are

as unknown as on the day you left California. If you mount the high

horse and say: ”Sir, you are a villain. Go to, go to!“ I shall merely

turn you loose without your trunks. You may imagine that with your voice

and beauty you could get an engagement anywhere. So you could—without

advertising, without an opera, and without a theatre of your own. Every

existing troupe has its own prima donna; you would have to take a second

or third rate part,—and unquestionably in a travelling troupe. There is

no place for you in New York but the one I propose to create. Lillian

Russell practically owns the Casino, and will, unless all signs fail,

for many years. She would not tolerate you on the same stage five

minutes; neither would any prima donna who had any influence with her

manager,—and they mostly have. Your career would be exactly what it

would have been if I had not met you,—full of hardships and change and

racing about the country; arriving at six in the evening, singing at

eight, leave the next morning at four, get what sleep you could on the

train. That’s about the size of it. You’d be painting inside of a year,

if not wearing plumpers. And what you’re mad at now, you’d be looking

upon as a matter of course then, and grateful for the admiration.

“‘Moreover, no success is worth a tinker’s dam that ain’t made in New

York,—I think I wrote you that on an average of once a month. If you

show that you have horse sense, and will sign a contract with me for

five years, I’ll make you the rage in New York inside of two months. Now

it is success or failure: you can take your choice. I’ll be here

to-morrow at ten.’ And he was gone before I could speak.

“_Bueno_, after I had gotten over being fearfully mad I sat down and

thought it all over. I knew that all he said was true. I had heard too

much in Paris. He had kept writing me that virtue paid in an actress to

keep me straight, but I had heard the opposite about nine hundred times.

_Bueno_, I was in a trap. I had made up my mind to succeed. I had even

worked for it,—and you know how much that meant with me. I made up my

mind that succeed I would, no matter what the price. It is one of two

things in this world,—success or failure,—and if you fail nobody cares

a hang about your virtue.

“You know I never was sentimental nor romantic. Soper had made a plain

business proposition in a practical way that I liked. If he had gone on

like a stage lover it would have been much harder. And after all I would

be no worse than a society girl who sells herself to a rich husband. So,

after turning it over for twenty-four hours—or all the time I was

awake—I concluded not to be a fool, but La Rosita, Queen of Opera

Bouffe. When he called I merely shrugged my shoulders and said

‘_Bueno_.’ He laughed, and said I would certainly succeed in this world;

that the beautiful woman with the cool calculating brain always got

there. So—here I am. What do you think of it?”

During this recital her voice had not for one instant broken nor

hardened. She told her story in the soft sweet languid voice of Spain;

she might have been relating an idyl of which she was the Juliet and

Soper the Romeo.

Patience stared at her with wide eyes and dry lips.

“And you have never regretted it?” she asked; “you don’t care?”

Rosita raised her beautiful brows. “Regret? Well, no, I should say not.

Have I not realised my dreams and ambition? Am I not rich and famous and

happy instead of a scrambling nobody? Regret?—No—rather. What is more,

I know how to save. A good many of us have learned that lesson. When I

have lost voice and youth I shall be rich,—rich. We do not end in a

garret, like in the old days. And I do not drink, and I rest a great

deal—it will be a long time before I go off. Besides, there are the

beauty doctors—Oh, no, I am not regretting. And Soper is getting tired

of me, I am happy to say.”

Patience rose and went into the room where the maid had carried her hat

and jacket. It was a bedroom, a white nest of lace and velvet. When she

returned she said: “I should like to go home and think it over. I feel

queer and stunned. You have taken me so completely by surprise that I

can hardly think.”

Rosita coloured angrily.

“You are shocked, I suppose,” she said with a sneer. “I should think—”

She paused abruptly. She was still an amiable little soul.

Patience understood perfectly, and turned a shade paler. “I told you

that I did not understand how I felt. In fact, I hardly ever know just

how I feel about anything. I suppose it is because I have the sort of

mind that is made to analyse, and I haven’t had experience enough to

know how. And I never judge any one. Why should I? Why should we judge

anybody? We are not all made alike. I couldn’t do what you have done,

but that is no reason why I should condemn you. That would be absurd. If

any one else had told me this story I should only have been

interested—I am so curious about everything. But you see you are the

only girl friend I ever had, and that is what makes me feel so

strangely. Good-bye;” and she hurriedly left the room.

XV

When she reached home she forgot her horror of death chambers, and went

to Miss Tremont’s room and flung herself on the bed. She did not

cry—her tears had all been spent; but she felt something of the

profound misery of the last year in Monterey. During the intervening

years she had seen little of the cloven hoof of human nature; the

occasional sin over on Hog Heights hardly counted; creatures of the

lower conditions had no high lights to make the shadows startling. But

to-day the horror of old experiences rushed over her; she was filled

with a profound loathing of life, of human nature.

So far, of love, in its higher sense—if it possessed such a part—she

had seen nothing; of sensuality, too much. True, she had spent two weeks

with Miss Galpin, during that estimable young woman’s engagement; but

Miss Galpin took love as a sort of front-parlour, evening-dress affair,

and Patience had not deigned to be interested. She had speculated

somewhat over Miss Tremont’s early romance, but could only conclude that

it was one of those undeveloped little histories that so many old maids

cherish.

She recalled all the love stories she had read. Even the masters were

insipid when they attempted to portray spiritual love. It was only when

they got down to the congenial substratum of passion that they wrote of

love with colour and fire. Was she to believe that it did not

exist,—this union of soul and mind? Her dreams receded, and refused to

cohere. She wondered, with natural egoism, if any girl of her age had

ever received so many shocks. She was on the threshold of life, with a

mass of gross material out of which to shape her mental attitude to

existing things. True, she had met only women of relative sinlessness

during these last years, but their purity was uninteresting because it

was that of people mentally limited, and possessed of the fad of the

unintellectual. Moreover, they had their erotism, the oddest, most

unreal, and harmless erotism the world has known in the last two

thousand years; and after all quite incidental: her keen eyes had long

since observed that the old maids were far more religious than the

married women, that the girls cooled perceptibly to the great

abstraction as soon as a concrete candidate was approved.

She longed passionately for Miss Tremont. All her old restlessness and

doubt had returned with the flight of that ardent absorbing personality.

She wished that she could have been remodelled; for, after all, the dear

old lady, whatever her delusions, had been happy. But she was still

Patience Sparhawk; she could only be thankful that Miss Tremont had

cemented her hatred of evil.

She rose abruptly, worn out by conjectures and analysis that led

nowhere, and went out into the woods.

“Oh,” she said, lifting her arms, “this at least is beautiful.”

The ground was hard and white and sparkling. The trees were crystal,

down to the tiniest twig. They glittered iridescently under the level

rays of the sun descending upon the Palisades on the far side of the

Hudson. The river was grey under great floating blocks of ice. Groves of

slender trees in the hollows of the Palisades looked like fine bunches

of feathers. On the long slopes the white snow lay deep; above, the dark

steeps were merely powdered, here and there; on the high crest the woods

looked black.

She walked rapidly up and down, calmed, as of old, by the beauty of

nature, but dreading the morrow and the recurring to-morrows. Suddenly

through those glittering aisles pealed the rich sonorous music of the

organ. The keys were under the hands of a master, and the great notes

throbbed and swelled and rolled through the winter stillness in the

divine harmonies of “The Messiah.” Patience stood still, shaking a

little. On a hill above the wood a large house had been built recently;

the organ must be there.

The diamond radiance of the woods was living melody. The very trees

looked to bow their crystal heads. The great waves of harmony seemed

rolling down from an infinite height, down from some cathedral of light

and stars.

The ugly impressions of the day vanished. The sweet intangible longing

she had been used to know in Carmel tower flashed back to her. What was

it? She recalled the words of the Stranger. It was long since she had

thought of him. She closed her eyes and stood with him in the tower. His

voice was as distinct as the notes of the organ. She felt again the

tumult of her young half-comprehending mind. Was not life all a matter

of ideals? Were not the bad and the good happy only if consistent to a

fixed idea? Did she make of herself such a woman as the Stranger had

evoked out of the great mass of small feminity, could she not be

supremely happy with such a man? Where was he? Was he married? He seemed

so close—it was incredible that he existed for another woman. Who more

surely than she could realise the purest ideal of her imaginings,—she

with her black experience and hatred of all that was coarse and evil?

She closed her eyes to her womanhood no longer. It thrilled and shook

her. If he would come—She trembled a little.

All men were henceforth possible lovers. Unless the Stranger appeared

speedily his memory must give way to the definite. The imperious demands

of a woman’s nature cannot be satisfied with abstractions. The ideal

which he stood for would lend a measure of itself to each engaging man

with whom she exchanged greeting.

XVI

“Miss Patience!” cried a strident voice.

Patience turned with a violent start. Ellen was a large blotch on the

white beauty of the wood.

“There’s a young lady to see you. She didn’t give her name as I

remember.”

Patience followed the servant resentfully. The world was cold and dull

again. But when she recognised the Peele coachman and footman on the

handsome sleigh before the door she forgot her dreams, and went eagerly

into the house.

A girl was standing before the mantel, regarding through a lorgnette a

row of photographs. She turned as she heard footsteps, and came forward

with a cordial smile on her plain charming face. She wore a black cloth

frock and turban which made Patience feel dowdy as Rosita’s magnificence

had not.

“I am Hal,” she said, “and you are Patience, of course. I hope you have

heard as much of me as I have of you. Dear old girl, I was awfully fond

of her. You look so tired—are you?”

“A little. It is so good of you to come. Yes, I’ve heard a very great

deal of you.”

“I’ll sit down, thank you. Let’s try this sofa. I’ve already tried the

chairs, and they’re awful. But I suppose dear old Harriet never sat down

at all. I wonder if she’ll be happy in heaven with nothing to do.”

Patience smiled sympathetically. “She ought to be glad of a rest, but I

don’t believe she is.”

“She thought we were all heathens—dear old soul; but I did love her.

What was the trouble? We only had one short letter from Miss Beale. Do

tell me all about it.”

Miss Peele had an air of reposeful alertness. She leaned forward

slightly, her eyes fixed on Patience’s with flattering attention. She

looked a youthful worldling, a captivating type to a country girl. Her

voice was very sweet, and exquisitely modulated. Occasionally it went

down into a minor key.

“What shall you do with yourself, now?” she asked anxiously, when

Patience had finished the brief story. “I am so interested in you. I

don’t know why I haven’t called before, except that I never find time to

do the things I most care for; but I have wanted to come a dozen times,

and when we returned yesterday and heard of the dear old girl’s death I

made up my mind to come at once. And I’m coming often. I know we shall

be such good friends. I’m so glad she left you her money so you won’t

have to work. It must be so horrid to work. I’m going to ask mamma to

ask you to visit us. She’s feeling rather soft now over Cousin Harriet’s

death, so I’ll strike before she gets the icebergs on. She isn’t

pleasant then. I’ll tell her you don’t wear the white ribbon yet—” She

broke into a light peal of laughter. “Poor mamma! how she used to

suffer. Cousin Harriet’s white bow was the great cross of her life. It

will go far toward reconciling her—Don’t think that my parent is

heartless. She merely insists upon everything belonging to her to be

_sans reproche_. That’s the reason we don’t always get along. What

lovely hair you have—a real _blonde cendrée_. It’s all the rage in

Paris. And that great coil is beautiful. Tell me, didn’t you find that

Temperance work a hideous bore?”

“Oh, yes, but no one could resist Miss Tremont.”

“Indeed one couldn’t. I believe she’d have roped me in if I’d lived with

her; but I’m a frivolous good-for-nothing thing. You look so serious. Do

you always feel that way?”

Patience smiled broadly. “Oh, no. I often feel that I would be very

frivolous indeed if circumstances would permit. It must be very

interesting.”

“You get tired of yourself sometimes—I mean I do. Are you very

religious?”

“I am not religious at all.”

“Oh, how awfully jolly. I do the regulation business, but it is really

tragic to carry so much religion round all the time. I wonder how Cousin

Harriet and the Lord hit it off, or if they liked each other better at a

distance? I corresponded once with the brother of a school friend for a

year, and when I met him I couldn’t endure him. Those things are very

trying. I am going to call you Patience. May I? And if ever you call me

Miss Peele you’ll be sorry. How awfully smart you’d look in gowns. My

colouring is so commonplace. If I didn’t know how to dress, and hadn’t

been taught to carry myself with an air, I’d be just nothing—no more

and no less. But you have such a lovely nose and white skin—and that

hair! You are aristocratic looking without being swagger. I’m the other

way. You can acquire the one, but you can’t the other. When you have

both you’ll be out of sight.

“What fun it would be,” she rambled on in her bright inconsequential

way, “if Bev should fall in love with you and you’d marry him. Then I’d

have such fun dressing you, and we’d get ahead of my cousin Honora

Mairs, whom I hate, and who, I’m afraid, will get him. Propinquity and

flattery will bring down any man—they’re such peacocks. But I’ll bring

him to see you. You ought to have a violet velvet frock. I’d bet on Bev

then. But, of course, you can’t wear colours yet, and that dead black is

wonderfully becoming. Can I bring him up in a day or two?”

“Oh, yes,” said Patience, smiling as she recalled her brief periods of

spiritual matrimony with Beverly Peele; “by all means. I’ll be so glad

to meet all of you. And you are certainly good to take so much interest

in me.”

“I am the angel of the family. Well, I must be off, or I’ll have to dine

all by me lonely. None of the rest of the family uses slang: that is the

reason I do. May is a grown-up baby, and never disobeyed her mamma in

her life. Honora is a classic, and only swears in the privacy of her

closet when her schemes fail. Mother—well, you’ve seen mother. As you

may imagine, she doesn’t use slang. Papa doesn’t talk at all, and Bev is

a prig where decent women are concerned. So, you see, I have to let off

steam somehow, and as I haven’t the courage to be larky, I read French

novels and use bad words.”

She rose and moved toward a heavy coat that lay on a chair. “Well,

Patience—what a funny lovely old-fashioned name you have—I’m going to

bring Bev to see you as a last resource. I’ve tried him on a dozen other

girls, but it was no go. I’ll talk you up to him meanwhile—I’ll tell

him that you are one of the cold haughty indifferent sort, and yet

withal a village maiden. He admires blondes, and you’re such a natural

one. We’ll come up Sunday on horseback. Now be sure to make him think

you don’t care a hang whether he likes you or not—he’s been so run

after. Isn’t it too funny? I did not come here on matchmaking thoughts

intent, but I do like you, and we could have such jolly good fun

together. I’ll teach you how to smoke cigarettes—”

“But Miss Peele—Hal—you know—I don’t want to marry your brother—I

have never even seen him—much as I should like to live with you—I’d

even smoke cigarettes to please you—but really—”

“Oh, I know, of course. I can only hope for the best, and Bev certainly

is fascinating. At least he appears to be,” and she smiled oddly; “but

being a man’s sister is much like being his valet, you know. Would you

mind helping me into this coat?

“I hate these heavy fur things,” she said petulantly. “Oh, thanks—they

don’t suit my light and airy architecture, and I can’t get up any

dignity in them at all. I need fluffy graceful French things. You’d look

superb in velvet and furs and all that sort of thing. Well,

bye-bye,—no,—_au revoir_.”

She took Patience’s face between her hands and lightly kissed her on

either cheek.

“Don’t be lonesome,” she said. “I’d go frantic in this house. Can’t I

send you some books? I’ve a lot of naughty French ones—”

“No!” said Patience, abruptly, “I don’t want them. Don’t think I’m a

prig,” she added, hastily, as a look of apprehension crossed Miss

Peele’s face; “but I had a hideous shock to-day, and I don’t want to

read anything similar at present—”

“Oh, tell me about it. How could you have a shock in Mariaville?”

“I didn’t. It was in New York—”

“Oh, was it real wicked? Did you have an adventure? Do tell me—Well,

don’t, of course, if you don’t want to, only I’m so interested in you.

Well, I must, must go;” and despite the furs she moved down the walk

with exceeding grace. As she drove off she leaned out of the sleigh and

waved her hand.

“Oh!” thought Patience, “I’m so glad she came. It was like fresh air

after a corpse covered with sachet bags.” And then she went to the

mantel and gazed upon Beverly Peele.

XVII

When Sunday came Patience dressed herself with unusual care. It did not

occur to her that people in different spheres of life arose at different

hours, and she expected her guests any time after eight o’clock.

Of course she must wear unrelieved black, but after prolonged regard in

the becoming mirror of the best spare room, she decided that it rather

enhanced her charms, now that a week’s rest had banished the circles

from her eyes and cleared her skin.

She had coiled her soft ashen hair loosely on the top of her head,

pulling it out a little about her face—she wore no bangs. Her restless

eyes were dark and clear and sparkling, her mouth pink. She carried her

slender figure with a free graceful poise. The carriage of her head was

almost haughty. Her hips had a generous swell. Her hands and teeth were

very white.

“I certainly have a look of race,” she thought, “if I’m not a beauty.

I’d give a good deal to know that my ancestors really did have good

blood in their veins. I don’t care so much for money, but I’d like to be

sure of that.”

After breakfast she wandered about restlessly. She had known few moments

of peace since Miss Peele’s visit. The train had been fired, and her

being was in a tumult. Beverly Peele, the Stranger, and the vague ideals

of her earlier girlhood were inextricably mixed. The result was a being

before whom she trembled with mingled rapture and terror. Her vivid

imagination had evoked a distinct entity, and the love scenes that had

been enacted between the girl and this wholly satisfactory eidolon were

such as have time out of mind made life as it is seem a singularly

defective composition to the wondering mind of woman.

At times she was terrified at the rich possibilities of her nature, so

little suspected. The revelation gave her vivid comprehension of woman’s

tremendous power for sacrifice and surrender, possibilities of which she

had read with much curiosity, but little sympathy. For those women she

felt a warm honour, a fierce desire to espouse their cause. For Rosita

she had only loathing and contempt.

It was not only passion that was awake. Sentiment, that finer child of

the brain, and the sweet faint feeling which assuredly lingers about the

region of the heart, whatever its physical cause may be, were there in

full measure to lend their potent lashings to that primeval force which

is as mighty in some women as in some men. It is doubtful if a woman

ever loves a man when in his arms with the same exaltation of soul and

passion which she feels for that creation of her brain that he little

more than suggests, and that is only wholly hers when the man himself is

absent. Imagination in woman is as arbitrary as desire in man, and she

is beaten down and crushed by this imperious and capricious brain-imp so

many times in her life that the wonder is she is not driven to the hopes

and illusions of religion, or to humour, long before the skin has

yellowed and the eye paled.

And when the imagination has full sway, when the man has not been

beheld, when he has been invested with every quality dear to the heart

of the generously endowed woman, when, indeed, all eidola blend, and she

has a confused vision of an immense and mighty force bearing down upon

her which shall sweep every tradition out of existence and annihilate

the material world, then assuredly man himself would do well to retire

into obscurity and curse his shortcomings.

It was four o’clock, and she had been through the successive stages of

hope, despair, hope, melancholia, hope, and resignation, before she

heard the sharp clatter of hoofs on the road. She ran to the dining-room

window, her heart thumping, and peered through the blind. They were

coming! Hal sat her horse like a swaying reed, but the young man on the

large chestnut rode in the agonised fashion of the day. He was of medium

height, she saw, compactly and elegantly built, and the beauty of his

face had defied the photographer’s art.

Patience ran to the kitchen and told Ellen to answer the bell

immediately, then sat down by the stove to compose herself. She was

still trembling, and wished to appear cold and stately, as Hal had

recommended. When Ellen returned and announced the visitors, she sprang

up, patted her hair, pulled down the bodice of her gown, and then, with

what dignity she could muster, went forth to meet her fate. She did wish

she had a train. It was so difficult to be stately in a skirt that

cleared the ground.

As she entered the parlour Mr. Peele was standing by the opposite door.

His riding gear was very becoming. Patience noted swiftly that his eyes

were a spotted brown and that his mouth pouted under the dark moustache.

Hal came forward with both hands extended. “We have come, you see,” she

said, “and we had to make a wild break to do it—had a lot of company;

but I was bound to come. Patience, this is Beverly. He’s quite frantic

to meet you. It was all I could do to keep him away until to-day.”

The young man bowed in anything but a frantic manner, and stood

gracefully until the girls were seated. Then he took a chair and

caressed his moustache, regarding Patience attentively.

“Would you mind if Bev smoked?” asked Hal. “He is just wild for a cigar.

We had to ride so hard to keep warm that he didn’t have a chance, and

he’s a slave to the weed.”

Patience glanced swiftly at the door, half-expecting to see the

indignant wraith of Miss Tremont, then, almost reluctantly, gave the

required permission. Mr. Peele promptly lit a cigar. Patience wondered

if he would ever speak. Perhaps he did not think it worth his while. He

looked very haughty.

“We had a perfectly beautiful ride,” said Hal, in her plaintive voice.

“I’d rather be on a horse than on an ocean steamer, and I do love to

travel. You look ever so much better than you did, Patience. You must

have needed a rest.”

Mr. Peele removed his cigar. “Perhaps that was what she had been

_im_patiently waiting for,” he remarked.

Patience stared at him. Her eyes expanded. Something seemed crumbling

within her.

“Oh, Bev, you do make me so tired,” said his sister. “I tell him

eighteen times a day that punning is the lowest form of wit, but he’s

incorrigible. I suppose it’s in the blood, and I’m glad it broke out in

him instead of in me. It is well to be philosophical in this life—”

“When you can’t help yourself—” interrupted Mr. Peele, easily.

Patience felt it incumbent upon her to make conversation, although her

thoughts were dancing a jig.

“You have a beautiful horse,” she said to the young man.

His eyes lit up with enthusiasm. “Isn’t she a beauty?” he exclaimed.

“She’s taken two prizes and won a race. She’s the daughter—”

“Patience doesn’t know anything about horses,” interrupted Hal. “What

does she care whose daughter Firefly is?”

“Oh, I’m very much interested,” faltered Patience.

“Are you really?” cried Mr. Peele, with a smile so beautiful that

Patience caught her breath. “I’ve got the rarest book in the country on

horses—beautiful pictures—coloured—I’ll bring it up and explain it to

you. Tell you a lot of stories about famous horses.”

“I shall be delighted.”

“Do you ride?”

“I used to ride a pony, but I haven’t been on a horse for so long I’ve

almost forgotten what it’s like.”

“That’s too bad. There’s nothing like it. Makes you feel so good. When I

have dyspepsia I just jump on Firefly, and I’m all right in less than no

time. I take a canter for dyspepsia—although I can’t—er—always feel

at home that way. Ahem!”

Patience wanted to tear her hair. It was with an effort that she kept

her face from convulsing with disgust. She caught sight of the young

man’s intellectual brow, and, without any premonitory consciousness,

laughed aloud. Mr. Peele smiled back with the pleasure of appreciated

wit, and resumed his cigar.

“Bev isn’t such a fool as he looks,” remarked Hal, airily. “Just have

patience with him. We all have our little failings.”

Patience sat as if turned to clay. She could not talk. All her natural

animation had deserted her. She wished they would go and leave her

alone. But Hal pulled off her riding gloves, and made herself

comfortable on the sofa. As she rattled on, Patience noticed how

beautiful her nails were. She turned her own hands over so that the

palms lay upward.

“Never mind,” said young Peele, in a low tone. “They’re much prettier.”

“What’s that?” cried Hal. “What are you blushing about, Patience? How

lovely it is to blush like that. I’ve forgotten how—and I’m only

twenty-two. There’s tragedy for you. It’s not that I’ve had so many

compliments about my beauty, nor yet about my winning ways,—which are

my strong point,—but I found so much to blush about when I was first

launched upon this wicked world that I exhausted my capacity. And Bev

always did tell such naughty stories—” She paused abruptly. “Dear me!

perhaps I’ve made a bad break, and prejudiced you against my brother;

and I want you to be good friends so that we can have jolly times

together. Perhaps you have an ideal man—a sort of Sir Galahad. I

haven’t sounded you yet.”

“Sir Galahad is not my ideal,” said Patience, with the quick scorn of

the woman who is born with intuitive knowledge of man. “I could not find

anything interesting in an elongated male infant.”

“Oh, how lovely!” cried Hal. “Give me the man of the world every time. I

tell you, you appreciate the difference when you have to entertain ’em.

And the elongated infant, as you put it, never understands a woman, and

she has no use for that species whatever. He doesn’t even want to

understand her, and a woman resents that as a personal insult. The bad

ones hurt sometimes, but they’re interesting; and when you learn how to

manage them it’s plain sailing enough. Mrs. Laurence Gibbs—a friend of

mamma’s, awfully good, goes in for charity and all that sort of

thing—said the other day that at the rate women were developing and

advancing, the standard of men morally would have to be raised. But I

said ‘Not much!’ that the development of woman meant that women were

becoming more clever, not merely bright and intellectual, and that

clever women would demand cleverness and fascination in man above all

else; and that Sir Galahads were not that sort. It’s experience that

makes a man interesting to us women,—they represent all we’d like to be

and don’t dare. If they were like ourselves—if they didn’t excite our

imaginations—we wouldn’t care a hang for them. Mrs. Gibbs was

horrified, of course, and told me I didn’t know what I was talking

about. But I said I guessed it was the other way. I’m not clever—not by

a long sight,—and if I can’t stand a prig I know a clever woman can’t

and won’t.”

“I’m so glad I’m not a prig,” murmured Mr. Peele.

“Oh, you’re a real devil. If you were clever now, you’d have to be shut

up to protect society; but as it is, you just go on your good looks, so

you’re not as dangerous as some.”

She rattled on, not giving the others a chance for more than a stray

remark. Patience, listening with deep curiosity to this new philosophy,

became aware of an increasing desire to turn her eyes to the man that

had so bitterly disappointed her. A direct potent force seemed to

emanate from him. It was her first experience of man’s magnetism, but

she knew that he possessed it to a remarkable degree. When he finally

shot out an insignificant remark she felt, in the excuse it gave her to

turn to him, a sensation of positive relief. He was leaning back in his

chair, in the easy attitude of a man that has been too accustomed to

luxury all his life to look uncomfortable in any circumstances. With his

picturesque garb, his noble, beautiful face, his subtle air of elegance

and distinction, he looked the ideal hero of girlhood’s dreams. Patience

wondered what Nature had been about, then recalled the many tricks of

that capricious dame made famous in history, the round innocent faces of

the worst boys in the Loyal Legion class, the saintly physiognomy of a

Mariaville minister who had recently fallen from grace.

Peele was watching her out of his half-closed eyes, and as she met them

he smiled almost affectionately. Patience averted her head quickly,

angry that she had felt an impulse to respond, and fixed her attention

on Hal. “Dear old Cousin Harriet,” that young woman was remarking, “how

I do wish that I were even sorrier than I am that she is dead. I try to

think it’s because I saw so little of her; but I know it’s just because

I’m so beastly selfish. I don’t care a hang for anything that doesn’t

affect my own happiness—”

“You’re not selfish,” interrupted Patience, indignantly.

“Oh, but I am,” said Miss Peele, with a comical little air of disgust

which sat as gracefully upon her as all her varying moods and manners.

“I get up thinking what I can get out of the day, and I go to bed glad

or mad according to what the day has done for me. I don’t go in for

Church work like Honora—dear Honora!—nor am I always doing some pretty

little thing for people like May. I suppose you think I’m an angel

because I came to see you. I assured myself at great length that it was

my duty—but it was plain curiosity, no more nor less; and now I like

you awfully, better than any woman I ever met—and I do so want you to

come and visit us, but—”

“Couldn’t you come and stay with me?” asked Patience, hurriedly. She had

no desire to visit Mrs. Gardiner Peele. “You know you have more or less

company, and I should be very quiet for a while. And oh! I should so

like to have you.”

“Oh, I’d love to! I’ll come and stay a week. I’m so sick of the whole

family, Bev included. We won’t be going anywhere for three months out of

respect for Cousin Harriet—mamma is very particular about those

things—and I can get away as well as not. I’ll come on Tuesday,—can I?

Bev will come up occasionally and see how I’m getting on—won’t you,

Bevvy, dear?”

“I’d much rather you would not be here,” said Mr. Peele, calmly.

“Oh—really—well, we’re all young yet. I’m coming all the same. I

suppose we must be going. We have to get home to dress for dinner, you

know.”

She rose, and drew on her gloves. Her brother stood up immediately and

helped her into her covert coat. “Well, Patience,” she said, kissing her

lightly, “you’ll see me on Tuesday. I’ll come by train, and wire you

beforehand. Mamma’ll raise Cain, but I’ll manage it. It’s only

occasionally she’s too much for me. The cold glare of those blue eyes of

hers freezes my marrow at times and takes all the starch out of me. It’s

awful to have been brought up under that sort of eye. When Honora

marries it’s the sort of eye she’ll have. She cultivates the angelic at

present. Have I talked you to death, Patience? So good of you to ask me

to come.”

Peele held out his hand, and Patience could do no less than lay hers

within it. As it closed she resisted an impulse to nestle her own more

closely into that warm grasp. He held her hand longer than was

altogether necessary, and she felt indignantly that she had no desire to

draw it away.

“That’ll do for one day,” said Hal, drily. “Come along, Beverly Peele.

We won’t get home for coffee at this rate.”

When they had gone Patience threw herself on the sofa and burst into

tears, then laughed suddenly. “I feel like the heroine of a tragedy,”

she thought. “And the tragedy is a pun!”

XVIII

Hal arrived on Tuesday afternoon. Patience for twenty-four hours after

Beverly Peele’s visit looked upon life through grey spectacles. She had

an impression of being a solitary figure on a sandy waste, illimitable

in extent. Life was ugly practical reality. It frightened her, and she

cowered before it, hating the future, her blood chilled, her nerves

blunt, her brain stagnant.

But by Tuesday morning, being young and buoyant, she revived, and roamed

through the woods, entirely loyal to the Stranger. She made up her mind

that she would find him, that he could not be married. He must have

waited for her. “Oh!” she thought, “if I could not believe that

something existed in this world as I have imagined it, some man good

enough to love and look up to, I believe I’d jump into the river. At

least I have heard Him talk. He could not be a disappointment, like that

hollow bronze. If there are many men in the world like Beverly Peele I

don’t wonder women are in revolt. Women start out in life with big

ideals of man, and if they are disappointed I suppose they unconsciously

strive to make themselves what they should have found in man. But it is

unnatural. It seems to me that man must be able to give woman the best

she can find in life, whether he does or not. Something in civilisation

has gone wrong.”

“I’ve been so restless,” she said to Hal, as the girls sat on the edge

of the bed in the spare room, holding each other’s hand. “If you had not

been coming I’d have gone to New York before this and seen Mr. Field,

the editor of the ‘Day’—He promised me once he’d make a newspaper woman

of me—”

“A what?” cried Hal. “What on earth do you want to be a newspaper woman

for?”

“Well, I must be something. I couldn’t live out of Mariaville on my

income, and the few hundred dollars Mr. Foord left me, and I don’t know

of anything else I want to be.”

“You are going to be Mrs. Beverly Peele,” said Hal, definitely. “Beverly

has the worst attack of my recollection. He has simply raved about you.

Tell me, don’t you like him?”

Patience said nothing.

Hal leaned forward and turned Patience’s face about. “Don’t you like

him?” she asked in a disappointed tone. “Tell me. Please be frank. I

hate people who are not.”

“Well, I’ll confess it—I was disappointed in him. You see, I’d thought

about him a good deal—several years, if you want to know the truth—and

I was sure he was an intellectual man—”

Hal threw back her head and gave a clear ringing laugh. “Bev

intellectual! That’s too funny. I don’t believe he ever read anything

but a newspaper and horse literature in his life. But we all think he’s

bright. I think it my duty to tell you that he has a fearful temper.

He’s always been mamma’s pet, and she never would cross him, so he flies

into regular tantrums when things don’t go to suit him; but on the whole

he’s pretty good sort. Don’t you think he’s good-looking?”

“Oh, wonderfully,” said Patience, glad to be enthusiastic.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll like him when you’ve forgotten the ideal and got

used to the real. Do please try to like him, for I’m bent on having you

for a sister-in-law.”

“Well, I’ll try,” said Patience, laughing.

“You have no idea,” continued the astute Miss Peele, “how many girls

have been in love with him. I’ve known girls that looked like marble

statues—the marble statue with the snub nose; that’s our swagger New

York type, you know,—well, I’ve seen them make perfect idiots of

themselves about him. But so far he’s rather preferred the ladies that

don’t visit at Peele Manor. I’ve brought some cigarettes. Can I smoke?”

“You can just do anything you like.”

“Thanks. Well, I think I’ll begin by lying down on this soft bed. It’s

way ahead of the chairs and sofa in the parlour.”

She exchanged her frock for a _peignoir_, and extended herself on the

bed. Patience sat beside her in a rocking chair, her troubles forgotten.

“By the way,” said Hal, suddenly removing her cigarette, “what was the

shock you had the other day? Tell me.”

“Well, I will,” and Patience told the story of Rosita from beginning to

end. Hal listened with deep interest.

“That’s a stunner,” she said, “and worth coming to Mariaville for. The

little rip. She didn’t tell you half. I’ll bet my hopes of a tiara on

that. But she does dance and sing like an angel. And so you were

children together? How perfectly funny! Now tell me your history, every

bit of it.”

Patience hesitated, then impulsively told the story, omitting few

particulars.

Miss Peele’s cigarette was allowed to go out. “Well, well,” she said,

when Patience had finished. “Fate did play the devil with you, didn’t

she? I’m so glad you’ve told me. I’ll tell the family what I like, and

you keep quiet. I have the inestimable gift of selection. You poor

child! I’m so glad you fell in with Cousin Harriet; and now you are

going to be happy for the rest of your life. Oh, it’s so good to be here

in this quiet place. I’m so tired of everybody. Sometimes I get a

fearful disgust. The same old grind, year after year. If I could only

fall in love; but when I do I know it’ll be with a poor man. I never did

have any luck.”

“Wouldn’t you marry him?”

Hal shook her wise young head. “I don’t know. You never can tell what

you’ll do when you get that disease; but I do know that I’d be miserable

if I did. Money, and plenty of it, is necessary to my happiness. You see

we’re not so horribly rich. Papa gives mamma and May and me two thousand

dollars each a year, and his income comes mostly from his practice. We

haven’t anything else but a little house in town, and Peele Manor—which

of course we’ll never sell—and a big farm adjoining. Bev runs that, and

has the income from it—about three thousand dollars a year. When he

wants more mamma gets it for him, and when he’s married of course he’ll

have a lot more. Two thousand stands me in very well now, but as a

married woman I want nothing under thirty thousand a year—and that’s a

modest ambition enough. You can’t be anybody in New York on less. Oh,

dear—life is a burden.”

“Your woes are not very terrible,” said Patience, drily.

“Oh, you’d think so if you were me. We suffer according to our

capacities and point of view. What is comedy to one is tragedy to

another. If I had to wear the same clothes for two seasons I’d be as

miserable as a defeated candidate for the Presidency. Beer makes one man

drunk and champagne another. Bev, by the way, never drinks. He’s rather

straight than otherwise. What’s your ideal of a man, by the way? Of

course you have an ideal.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Patience, vaguely. “A man with a big brain and

a big heart and a big arm.”

Miss Peele laughed heartily. “You are not exacting in your combinations,

not in the least.”

The week passed delightfully to Patience, although Hal became rather

restless toward the end. She arranged Patience’s hair in six different

fashions, then decided that the large soft coil suited her best.

Patience’s nails were manicured, she was taught how to smoke cigarettes,

and select extracts from French novels were read to her. Hal was an

accomplished gossip, and regaled her hostess with all the whispered

scandals of New York society. She was a liberal education.

Beverly did not call, nor did he write, and Hal anathematised him

freely.

“But I have my ideas on the subject,” she said darkly. “Just you wait.”

XIX

On the evening of Hal’s departure, as Patience was braiding her hair for

the night, there was a sharp ring at the bell, and a few moments later

Ellen came upstairs with a card inscribed “Mr. Beverly Peele.” Patience

felt disposed to send word that she had retired, so thoroughly had she

lost interest in the young man; but reflecting that he had probably

ridden ten miles on a cold night to see her, told Ellen to light all the

burners in the parlour, and twisted up her hair.

As she went downstairs she saw a heavy overcoat on the hall table.

“If it had occurred to me that he had come by train,” she thought, “I’d

have let him go home again.”

He came forward with his charming smile, looking remarkably handsome in

his evening clothes.

“It was kind of you to come,” she said, too unsophisticated to feel

embarrassed at receiving a man at night in a house where she lived alone

with a servant. “Of course you knew how lonely I must be.”

“Hal is good company, isn’t she?” he asked, holding her hand and staring

hard at her. “But I should think she’d miss you more than you’d miss

her.”

Patience withdrew her hand abruptly. Her face wore its accustomed cold

gravity, contradicted by the eager eyes of youth. “Won’t you sit down? I

hope Hal has missed me, but she has hardly had time to tell you so.”

“Hasn’t she? She has had several hours, and I suppose you know by this

time how fast she can talk. She’s awfully bright, don’t you think so?”

“Indeed she is.”

“She isn’t a beauty like May, nor intellectual like Honora, but you

can’t have everything—that is, everybody can’t.”

“Does any one?” asked Patience, indifferently.

“Hal says you are the cleverest woman she has ever met,—and—”

“I’m afraid Hal is carried away by the enthusiasms of the moment,” said

Patience, as he paused. She was highly gratified, nevertheless.

“—you are the prettiest woman I ever saw,” he continued, as if she had

not spoken.

“Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed Patience, angrily, but the colour flew to her

face.

“I mean it,” and indisputably his eyes spoke admiration. “I’ve thought

of no one else since I was here. I haven’t come before, because there’s

nothing in calling on your sister, and that’s what it would have

amounted to. But, you see, I’m here the very night she left.”

“You are very flattering.” Patience was beginning to feel vaguely

uncomfortable. She realised that the lore gathered from novels was

valueless in a practical emergency, and longed for the experience of

Hal. “I understand that you are considered fascinating, and I suppose

most women do like to be flattered.”

“I never paid a woman a compliment before in my life,” he said,

unblushingly. “You don’t look a bit like any woman I ever saw. Hal says

you look like a ‘white star on a dark night,’ and that’s about the size

of it. You have such lovely hair and skin. I’ve always rather admired

plump women, but your slenderness suits you—”

“Oh, please talk about something else! I am not used to such stuff, and

I don’t like it. Suppose you talk about yourself.” (She had read that

man could ever be beguiled by this bait.) “Are you as fond of travel as

Hal is?”

“I never travel,” he said shortly. “When I find a comfortable place I

stay in it. Westchester County suits me down to the ground.”

“You mean to say that you can travel and don’t? that you don’t care at

all to see the beautiful things in Europe?”

“Oh, my mother always brings home a lot of photographs and things, and

that’s all I want of it. I never could understand why Americans are so

restless. I’m sick of the very sound of Europe, anyway.”

“Are you fond of New York?”

“New York is the centre of the earth, and full of pretty—interesting

things, dontcherknow? I’ve had some gay times there, I can tell you. But

I’ve settled down now, and prefer Westchester County to any place on

earth. I’d rather be behind or on a horse than anything else.”

“Don’t you care for society?”

“I hate it. One winter was enough for me. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me

into a ball-room again. Of course when the house is full of company in

summer I like that well enough. I play billiards with the men and

spoon—flirt with the girls and the pretty married women; but I’m just

as contented when they’ve all cleared out.”

“Do you mean to say that you stay in the country by yourself all winter?

What do you do? Read?”

“N-o-o-o. I don’t care much about books. We have a big farm and I run

it, and I skate and drive and ride and smoke—Oh, there’s plenty to do.

Occasionally I go to town and have a little fun.”

“What do you call fun if you don’t like society,—the theatre?”

“The theatre!” he laughed. “I never sat out a play in my life. Oh, I

don’t know you well enough to tell you everything yet. Sometime, I’ll

tell you a lot of funny things.”

“Perhaps you enjoy the newspapers in winter,” said Patience, hastily.

“Oh, I read even the advertisements. The papers are all the reading any

man wants. There are two or three good sensational stories every day.”

“I don’t read those,” said Patience, disgustedly. This idol appeared to

be clay straight up to his hair. “I like to read the big news and Mr.

Field’s editorials.”

“Oh, you need educating. I read those too—not Field; he’s too much for

me. But I didn’t come here to talk about newspapers—”

“Won’t you smoke a cigar?”

“No, thanks. I smoked all the way down, and in the cab too, for that

matter—”

“Are the horses standing out there in the cold? Wouldn’t you like to

tell him to take them to the barn?”

“I suppose he can look after his own horses. They’re nothing but old

hacks, anyhow.” He leaned forward abruptly and took her hand, pressing

it closely. “Oh!” he said. “I’ve been wild to see you again.”

Patience attempted to jerk her hand away, acutely conscious of a desire

to return his clasp. She did the worst thing possible, but the only

thing that could be expected: she lost her head. “I don’t like you to do

that,” she exclaimed. “Let me go! What do you mean, anyhow?”

“That you are the loveliest woman I ever saw. I have been wild about

you—” He had taken her other hand, and his face was close to hers. He

had lowered his lids slightly.

“And you think that because I am alone here you can say what you like?”

she cried passionately. “You would not dare act like this with one of

your mother’s guests!”

“Oh, wouldn’t I?” He laughed disagreeably. “But what is the use of being

a goose—”

Patience sprang to her feet, overturning her chair: but she only

succeeded in pulling him to his feet also; he would not release her

hands.

“I wish you would leave the house,” she said, stamping her foot. “If you

don’t let me go, I’ll call Ellen.”

“Oh, don’t make a goose of yourself. And I’m not afraid of a servant.

I’m not going to murder you—nor anything else. Only,—do you drive all

men wild like this?”

“I don’t know anything about men,” almost sobbed Patience, “and I don’t

want to. Will you go?”

“No, I won’t.” He released her hands suddenly; and, as she made a spring

for the door, flung his arms about her. She ducked her head and fought

him, but he kissed her cheeks and brow and hair. His lips burnt her

delicate skin, his powerful embrace seemed absorbing her. She was filled

with fury and loathing, but the blood pounded in her ears, and the very

air seemed humming. The man’s magnetism was purely animal, but it was a

tremendous force.

“You are a brute, a beast!” she sobbed. “Let me go! Let me go!”

“I won’t,” he muttered. He too had lost his head. “I’ll not leave you.”

He strove to reach her mouth. She managed to disengage her right arm,

and clinching her hand hit him a smart blow in the face. He laughed, and

caught her hand, holding it out at arm’s length.

“Ellen!” she cried. As she lifted her head to call he was quick to see

his advantage. His mouth closed suddenly on hers.

The room swam round her. She ceased to struggle. Her feet had touched

that nether world where the electrical forces of the universe appear to

be generated, and its wonder—not the man—conquered her. She shook

horribly. She felt a tumultuous impulse to spring upon her ideals and

beat them in the face.

Heavy footfalls sounded in the kitchen hall.

“There is Ellen!” she gasped, wrenching herself free. The man stamped

his foot. He looked hideous.

“Go!” said Patience. “Go, just as fast as you can, and don’t you ever

come here again. If you do, it won’t do you any good, for you’ll not see

me.”

And she ran upstairs and locked her door loudly.

XX

For some time she walked rapidly up and down, pressing her hands to her

hot face. Chaos was in her. She could not think. She only felt that she

wanted to die, and preferred the river. She poured water into a basin

and plunged her face into it again and again. The water had the chill of

midwinter, and sent the blood from her brain; but she felt no cleaner.

Still, her brain was no longer racing like a screw out of water, and she

sat down to think. It was her trend of mind to face all questions with

the least possible delay, and she looked at herself squarely.

“So,” she thought, “I am the daughter of Madge Sparhawk, after all. The

horror of that night left me as I was made. Three years with the best

woman the sun ever shone on only put the real me to sleep for a time.

All my ideals were the vagaries of my imagination, a sort of unwritten

book, of the nature of those that geniuses write, who spend their

leisure hours in debauchery. I am no better than Rosita. I have not even

the excuse of love—if I had—if it had been Him—I might

perhaps—perhaps—look upon passion as a natural thing. Certainly it is

not disagreeable,” and she laughed unpleasantly. “But I despised this

man. He has not the brain of a calf nor the principle of a savage, and

yet it is he that made me forget every ideal I ever cherished. If I met

Him now, I would not insult him with the gift of myself. . . .

“If Beverly Peele came in here now I verily believe that I should kiss

him again. What—what is human nature made of? I have the blood of

refined and enlightened ancestors in my veins—I know that. I have seen

nothing of sexual sin that did not make me abhor it. Barring my mother,

I had the best of influences in Monterey, and I knew the difference. I

have—or had—a natural tendency toward all that was refined and

uplifting. I was even sure I had a soul. My brain is better, and better

furnished, than that of the average woman of my age. And yet, at the

first touch, I crumble like an old corpse exposed to air. I am simply a

body with a mental annex, and the one appears to be independent of the

other.

“Is the world all vile?” she continued, resuming her restless walk.

“This man attacked me as if he had no anticipation of a rebuff. And yet

I am the friend of his sister, the adopted daughter of his mother’s

cousin, and, he has every reason to think, of irreproachable life. If

the world—his mother’s world—were not full of such women as he

imagined me to be—he would never have taken so much for granted. He

acted as if he thought me a fool, and I appear to be remarkably green. I

am certainly learning. Oh—the brute! the brute!” And she flung herself

on the bed and burst into violent weeping, which lasted until she was so

exhausted that she fell asleep without disrobing.

XXI

The next morning her head ached violently. She started for the woods,

but turned back. They held her lost ideals. She sat all day by the

window, looking at the Hudson, listless, and mentally nauseated.

During the afternoon a special messenger brought a note of abject

apology from Beverly Peele. She burnt it half read and told the man

there was no answer. There is only one thing a woman scorns more than a

man’s insult, and that is his apology.

The next day he called, but was refused admission by the sturdy Ellen.

Patience spent the day on Hog Heights. On the following day he called

again, with the same result. The next day Hal came.

“What is the row between you and Bev?” she exclaimed, before she had

seated herself. “He says you’ve taken a dislike to him, and is in the

most beastly temper about it. I never saw him so cut up. He’s sent me

here to patch it up and give you this letter. Do tell me what is the

matter?”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Patience, grimly. “The idea of his sending

his sister to patch it up!” And she gave an account of Mr. Peele’s

performance, woman-like omitting her own momentary forbearance.

Hal listened with an amused smile. “So Bev made a bad break,” she

remarked when Patience had concluded. “I’m not surprised, for he’s

pretty hot-headed, and head over ears in love. You mustn’t take life so

tragically. I’ve had several weird experiences myself, although I’m not

the kind that men lose their head about as a rule; only given the hour

and the occasion, some men will lose their head about any woman. Perhaps

I should have said New York men. They are a rare and lovely species.

They admire God because he made himself of their gender and knew what he

was about when he invented woman. I was out on a sleighing party one

moonlight night last winter, and on the back seat with a man I’d never

seen out of a ball-room before. The way that man’s legs and arms flew

round that sleigh made my hair curl. You see, a lot of us are fast, but

then plenty of us are not. The trouble is that the men can’t

discriminate, as we look pretty much alike on the outside. They’re not a

very clever lot—our society men—and they don’t learn much until

they’ve been taught. Then when they are forced to believe in your virtue

they feel rather sorry for you, and later on are apt to propose—if you

have any money. Bev would propose to you if you were living in a tent

and clad in a gunny sack. He would have preferred things the other

way—it’s so much less trouble—but as he can’t, he won’t stop at any

such trifling nuisance as matrimony. Oh, men are a lovely lot! Still,

the world would be a pretty stupid place without them. You’ll learn to

manage them in time, and then they’ll only amuse you. They are not

really so bad at heart—they’ve been badly educated. I know four married

women of the type we call ‘friskies,’ whom my mother would shudder at

the thought of excluding from her visiting list, and whom I’d bet my new

Paquin trunk, several men I know have had affairs with. So what can you

expect of a man?”

“Is the world rotten?” asked Patience, in disgust.

“It’s just about half and half. I know as many good women as bad. Half

the women in society are good wives and devoted mothers. The other half,

girls and married women, old and young, are no better than your Rosita.

Sometimes their motives are no higher. Usually, though, it’s craving for

excitement. I don’t blame those much myself. The most fascinating woman

I know is larky. She as much as told me so. Some of the confessions I’ve

had from married women would make you gasp. Well—let’s quit the

subject. Promise me you’ll forgive Bev.”

“I shall not. I hate him. I shall never look at him again if I can help

it.”

“Oh, dear, dear, you are young! And I do so want you for a sister. May

is such a fool, and I do hate Honora.”

“You wouldn’t have me loathe myself for the sake of being your sister, I

suppose?”

“Of course I wouldn’t have you marry Bev if you couldn’t like him; but I

believe you really do, only things haven’t turned out as you planned in

that innocent little skull of yours. Bev is a good fellow, as men go.

You’ll get used to him and his kind in the course of time, and then

you’ll enjoy life in a calm practical way.”

“Is there no other way?” asked Patience, bitterly.

“Not in my experience. And if you stay here in your woods you’ll get

tired of your ideals after a while. You can’t live on ideals—the human

constitution isn’t made that way. If it was there’d be no such thing as

society. We’d live in caves and bay the moon. So you’d better come into

the world, Patience dear, and accept it as it is, and drain it for all

it’s worth.”

“Oh, hush! You are too good to talk like that.”

“Good?—what is good? I am the result of my surroundings—a little

better than some, a little worse than others. So was Cousin Harriet. So

is La Rosita. I’m not cynical. I merely see life—my section of

it—exactly as it is. If you become a newspaper woman you’ll probably

receive a succession of shocks. As nearly as I can make out they’re

about like us—half and half. I became quite chummy with a newspaper

woman, once, crossing the Atlantic. She was awfully pretty, and, as

nearly as one woman can judge of another, perfectly proper. She related

some wild and weird experiences she had had with men. Yours would

probably be wilder and weirder, as you appear to be possessed of an

unholy fascination; and in a year or two you’ll be a beauty. All you

want is a little more figure and style—or rather clothes.”

“Well, if I’m to have wild and weird experiences I prefer to have them

with men of brains, not with a lot of empty-headed society men.”

“Don’t generalise too freely, my dear. There are newspaper men and

newspaper men,—according to this girl I’ve just told you of. Some are

brainy, some are merely bright; some are gentlemen, most are common

beyond words. And, as she said—after you’ve worked with man in his

shirt sleeves, you don’t have many illusions about the animal left.”

“I have not one, and I lost them in an hour. Your brother is supposed to

be a gentleman with a long array of ancestors, and he acted like a wild

Indian.”

“My dear, he merely lost his head. That was a compliment to you, and you

should not be too hard on a man in those circumstances. He won’t do it

again, I’m sure of that. He has some control. I warned him before he

came not to pun, and he says he didn’t, not once. Now, tell me one

thing—Don’t you like him just a little?”

“No,” said Patience; but she flushed to her hair, and Hal, with her

uncanny wisdom, said no more.

XXII

The next day Patience went to the woods for the first time since Beverly

Peele’s onslaught. A natural reaction had lifted her spirits out of the

slough, and she turned to nature, as ever. She could never be the same

again, she thought with a sigh; and once more she must readjust herself.

She wondered if any girl had ever done so much readjusting in an equal

number of years.

The woods were no longer a scene of enchantment. The ice had melted. The

trees were grey and naked again. The ground was slush, and nasty to walk

upon.

“But the spring must come in time,” she thought; “and then perhaps I’ll

feel new too—but not the same, for like the spring I shall have other

seasons behind me.

“But—perhaps—who knows?—I may be the better for knowing myself. I was

in a fool’s paradise before. Perhaps I was in danger of becoming an

egoist, and imagining myself made of finer fibre than other women. Great

writers show that the same brute is in all of us, and I can believe it.

Some work it off in religion, but the majority don’t. There seems to be

some tremendous magnetic force in the Universe that makes the human race

nine-tenths Love—for want of a better name. Circumstances and ancestors

determine the direction of it. It seems too bad that Civilisation has

not done more for us than to give us the analytical mind which

understands and rebels, and no more, at the inheritance of the savage.

But now that I know myself, perhaps I can go forward more surely on the

path to the higher altitudes of life. I should like to be as good as

auntie, and worldly-wise beside.

“I suppose my horrid experience with this man will make me more exacting

with all men. I think I could not blunder into matrimony, as some women

do. I feel as if I never wanted to see another man, but that impression

will pass—all impressions appear to pass. I may even want to meet Him

after a time, and perhaps he will forgive. Shouldn’t be surprised if

he’d want a good deal of forgiveness himself. Meanwhile I can work, and

learn all I can of what life means, anyway. I’ll go to Mr. Field—”

The soft ground echoed no footfalls, but Patience suddenly became aware

that some one was approaching her. She turned, and saw Beverly Peele.