I
“I do hope you’ll make a hit, Patience,” said Hal, regarding her
critically. “The public, even the little public of a garden party, is a
thing you can’t bet on, but you certainly are stunning. If ever papa
loses his fortune, in the curious American way, I shall follow the ever
seductive example of the English aristocracy and go in for dressmaking.
That frock is a triumph of art, if I do say it myself.”
Patience revolved slowly before the Psyche mirror which stood between
two open windows in one corner of Hal’s pretty terra-cotta bedroom. She
too was pleased with the airy concoction of violet and white. On a chair
lay a picture hat, another bird of the same feather. Hal placed it on
Patience’s head, a little back, and the violet velvet of the interior
made a very effective frame for the soft ashen hair and white skin.
“You certainly carry yourself well,” continued Hal, “and before long you
will acquire an air. Always keep in mind that _that_ is the most
important thing in life—our life—to acquire. But you look like a lily,
a purple and white forest lily.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what to talk to fashionable people about.”
“Don’t be too clever—don’t frighten the men and antagonise the women.
You see, you’re not known at all, so people won’t begin by being afraid
of you—as they would if they knew all that went on in that pretty skull
of yours. Just be Mrs. Beverly Peele. Nobody would ever suspect Bev of
marrying a clever woman. You can’t do the artless and infantile, like
May: your face is too strong; but you can be unsophisticated, and that
always goes.”
“I’m not unsophisticated!”
“Oh, don’t look like that. All the light seems to go out of your skin. I
mean give everybody the impression that you have everything to learn,
and that each, individually, can teach it all. It’s awfully fetching.
That is what has made May’s success. Of course you wouldn’t be another
May, if you could; but you want to begin at the beginning—don’t you
know? You must let society feel that it gives you everything, tells you
everything. Then it will love you. But if it suspects that you are
alien—the least little bit—then there will be the devil to pay. Of
course a few of the best sort would like you, but I’m set on your making
a hit.”
“I’m afraid I’ll never take,” said Patience, with a sigh, “but I am wild
to see Vanity Fair, all the same. It must be great fun—all that
brilliancy and life. But somehow I don’t feel in tune with the people I
have met, so far.”
“Oh, that’s natural. You are not acclimatised yet, so to speak. Society
is a distinctly foreign country to those that have not been brought up
in it. Just sit down on the edge of that chair and rest while I take a
look at myself.”
“White is certainly my day colour,” she continued, revolving in her turn
before the mirror. “It is wonderful how it clears the skin, especially
with a touch of blue near the face. Pink would make me as yellow as
October, and green would suggest thirty-five. Your grey matter will be
spared the wear and tear of The Study of Colour, but if I hadn’t reduced
it to a fine art, I’d have had to turn literary or something when May
came out.”
“You look just like a fairy! I never saw anything so dainty.”
“Oh, of course; I’m so little and light that I have to work the fairy
racket for all it’s worth. It’s a heavenly day, isn’t it? The country’s
got its best spring clothes on, sure enough.”
The girls leaned out of each of the windows in turn, scrutinising the
grounds. In front and on both sides of the house the land rolled away in
great irregular waves. Woods were in the sudden hollows, on the lofty
knolls; between, shelving expanses of green, bare but for an occasional
oak or elm. Beside the driveway was a long narrow avenue of elms, down
which two might pace shoulder to shoulder, and no more. In a deep hollow
on the right was the orchard, a riot of pink and white. The immediate
grounds were small and trim, and fragrant with the flowers of
civilisation; out on the hills beyond the wild-flowers and tall grass,
the locust and hawthorn, had their way. Behind all flowed the Hudson
under the green Palisades, its surface gay with sail and steamboat.
A dancing booth had been erected on one of the lawns, and the musicians
were already assembling under the silken curtains.
“It looks very well,” said Hal, “and you couldn’t have a more perfect
day for your _début_. Not that I care much for garden parties; the fresh
air makes me sleepy, and there’s no concentration, as it were—as there
is in a ball-room, don’t you know? But mamma decreed that the world
should make your acquaintance out of doors, and that is the end of it. I
wonder if you’ll manage to induce Bev to go to town for the winter.”
“I hope so! It will be horribly dull to stay here all winter, with all
of you away.”
“That’s an edifying sentiment for a bride of three months. However, I
agree with you. I’d go mad shut up in a country house in winter with the
most fascinating man that ever breathed. And the dickens of it is, mamma
always takes his part, whether he’s wrong or right. She’ll preach wifely
duty to you until you’d live on a desert island to get rid of her.”
“I’ve heard her,” said Patience, gloomily.
“I wondered if that was what she was at in the library yesterday. When
mamma has her chin well up and her lower lip well out I can tell at long
range that she’s embracing the cause of virtue. But she tackled you
rather early in the game, considering you haven’t made any notable break
as yet.”
“I wouldn’t go driving with Beverly yesterday,—the sun makes my head
ache,—and I’d also begged him to take me to the theatre to see Rosita,
and he wouldn’t.”
“Oh, you’ll never get Bev to the theatre. We’ll go by ourselves to a
matinée. However, it’s better than being a newspaper woman on several
dollars a week—come now, own up?”
“I enjoyed Florida and New Orleans and Canada immensely.”
“That was a tremendous concession for Bev to make—he detests
travelling. He certainly is in love; but I imagine he expects you to
live on that same concession for some time to come—thinks it’s your
turn to do the self-sacrificing act. Such is man. Anyhow, I’m glad it’s
all turned out so comfortably, and that you are here, and that all is
settled—”
“I want to ask you something. I couldn’t get it out of Beverly. Did your
mother make a very violent objection to his marrying me? Of course I am
a social nobody, and she must have made great plans for her only son.
She didn’t say anything when she came to call; but, you see, she didn’t
call until three days before the wedding, and Beverly’s and your excuses
were not very good.”
“Oh, of course she raised Cain,” said Miss Peele, easily; “that was to
be expected. But papa put his foot down and said he was glad to have
Beverly marry a clever woman: it might be the making of him. And _I_
just fought! Of course I’d told papa that you were as high bred as any
woman in America, and that you’d look a swell in less than no time. That
weighed heavy with him, for, in his opinion, God may have made himself
first, but he made the Peeles next, and no mistake. And Bev! He went
into the most awful tantrums you ever saw. I think that was what brought
mamma round—she was afraid he’d burst a blood-vessel. When she wrote
and asked Miss Beale to live with you I knew the day was won. And now
that you are Mrs. Beverly Peele she’ll respect you accordingly, although
you’ll have some lively tussles. But make her think you adore Bev, and
you’ll pull through. Suppose we go down now. Tra-la-la! I wish it were
over.”
II
The girls descended the twisted stair into the wide hall. All the doors
and windows were open, and the soft air blew through the great house,
lifting the lace and silken curtains.
A girl, looking like a large butterfly, in her yellow frock, was
fluttering about the hall amidst the palms and the huge vases of
flowers. Her skin was of matchless tints, her large blue eyes as
guileless as those of an infant.
“Oh! Oh!” she cried, as Hal and Patience reached the first landing, “how
perfectly sweet! Hal, is my frock all right in the back? My things never
fit quite as well as yours do. Isn’t Patience too fetching for words? I
wish I was just white like that. How perfectly funny that we should be
giving a garden party for Bev’s wife! Who would have thought it last
year? Isn’t it odd how things do happen? And hasn’t Honora been
perfectly lovely about it? I always knew she didn’t care. I wonder if
any decent men will come up! It’s so hard—Hal, _does_ my frock wrinkle
in the back?”
“Oh, no, no,” drawled Hal, without looking at her. She glanced at the
tall clock in an angle. “They’ll be here in ten minutes, now—Oh—h—h!”
A portière was pushed aside, and a girl entered the hall from a dark
background of books and heavy curtains. She was far above the ordinary
height of woman, and extremely slender. Golden hair clustered about a
long face, pale rather than white. The large azure eyes had the
extraordinary clarity of childhood, and an expression of perfect purity.
The nose was long, the mouth thin, but well curved and very red. She
wore a clinging gown of white crêpe and a large knot of blue
wild-flowers at her belt. She moved slowly forward, managing her long
limbs with much dexterity, but could hardly be called graceful. Patience
thought her the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, and murmured her
admiration to Hal, who snorted in a gentle, ladylike way.
“They will be here in a moment, I suppose,” said Honora, wearily. “I
think I shall not go out. I’ll stay in the drawing-room and entertain
the older people. Some one must attend to them, and I really prefer the
house.”
“You are always so amiable,” said Hal, drily, “and you certainly won’t
get freckled.”
“It is true that I don’t like freckles,” said Honora, calmly, “and I do
like the older people. Even you, when you have a few white hairs, may
become more or less interesting. Patience, dear, you look very lovely.
You must let me kiss you.” She bent her cool lips to the brow of the
bride, swaying over her. Her voice could not be described by any
adjective devoid of the letter L. It was liquid, silvery, cold, light.
“She certainly is a stunning-looking woman,” said Hal, as Honora passed
into the drawing-room, “but she’s a whole rattlesnake, and no mistake.
I’ve never seen her strike real hard yet; she merely spits occasionally,
and always in that amiable way. You can imagine how subtle she is, and
what a dangerous force such self-control is. I shall never understand
how she failed to get Bev.”
“Perhaps, as May suggests, she didn’t want him.”
“Oh, didn’t she! Just wait! you’ll hear from her yet. There’s the
whistle. The train’ll be here in three minutes. Let us group ourselves
gracefully under Peele the First.”
They went into the large white drawing-room, whose old-fashioned
woodwork was as it had been nearly three hundred years ago, even to the
heavy shutters over the small-paned windows. The ceiling was fretted
with floral designs, executed in _papier mâché_, surrounding a _bas
relief_ of “our well beloved Whyte Peele,” who had received the grant of
these many acres from James the First. All the woodwork was painted
white, and carved. The furniture, modern, but of colonial design, was
upholstered in pale pink and blue.
Beyond a side hall was a long dining-room panelled to the ceiling in
oak, and hung on all sides with dead and living Peeles. The carved oaken
table was spread with the light unsubstantial feast of the modern time.
Adjoining the dining-room were two small reception-rooms looking upon
the terrace at the back of the rambling old house. In the middle of this
hall, under the carved twisted stair, was a round enclosure whose door
opened upon a well, from whence a secret passage led to the river.
Mrs. Peele swept across the hall from the dining-room, and raising her
lorgnette, considered Patience.
“You look very well,” she said, coldly. “Don’t get nervous, please; it
is the one thing for which people have no toleration. Where is Beverly?”
“He has gone for a drive. You know he does not like entertainments.”
Patience’s nerves were muttering, and her mother-in-law’s admonition was
not of the nature of balm.
Mrs. Peele raised her brows. “It is odd that a bride should have so
little influence over her husband,” she remarked; and Patience was now
in that equable frame of mind which carries one through the severe
ordeals of life.
How she did live through that ordeal of introduction to some five
hundred people she never knew. Fortunately, all but the neighbours
arrived on the special train which had been sent for them, and there was
little for her to do but smile and bend her head as Mrs. Peele named her
new daughter-in-law to her guests.
And whatever might be that exalted dame’s private opinion of her son’s
choice, whatever methods she might employ in untrammelled domestic hours
to make her disapproval felt, to the world she assumed her habitual air
of being supremely content with all that pertained to the house of
Peele. Had Patience been the daughter of a belted earl she could not
have been presented to New York with a haughtier pride, a calmer
assumption that New York must embrace with gratitude and enthusiasm this
opportunity to meet the daughter-in-law of the Gardiner Peeles.
Her manner gave Patience confidence after a time. Her own pride had
already conquered diffidence; and trying as the long ordeal was, she
thrilled a little at the sudden realisation of half-formed ambitions.
There was no taint of the snob in her; some echo-voice of other
generations lifted itself out of the inherited impressions which had
moulded her brain cells, and protested against its descendant ranking
below the first of the land.
Many of the guests were politely indifferent to the honour provided for
them; the girls stared at her in a manner calculated to upset any
_débutante’s_ equilibrium; but the gracious kindness of others and the
languid admiration of the men kept her in poise.
The neighbours arrived shortly after the train, and it was an hour
before the greater part of the company had dispersed over the grounds,
and Patience could sit down. Mrs. Peele remained in the drawing-room
with some eight or ten people, and as Hal and May had both disappeared,
Patience stayed with her mother-in-law, not knowing where to go.
She thought the girls very forbidding with their pert noses and keen
eyes, although she admired their luminous skin and splendid grooming,
striking even in the airy attire of spring. The older women looked as if
they would patronise her did Mrs. Peele withdraw her protecting wing,
and one man, passing the window, inserted a monocle and regarded her
deliberately. Suddenly Patience experienced a sensation of profound
loneliness. No force in life is surer of touch than the subtle play of
spirit on spirit, and Patience read that these people did not like her
and never would, that they recognised the alien who would regard their
world spectacularly, never acquire their comic seriousness.
“Are you fond of golf, Mrs. Peele?” asked one girl, languidly.
“I never have played golf.”
The girl raised her brows. “Really! Are you fond of tennis?”
“I have never played tennis.” Patience repressed a smile as the girl
looked frankly shocked. Still the guest was evidently determined to be
amiable.
“I hope you don’t think it frivolous?”
“Oh, no, I should like to learn all those things very much.”
“Well, Miss Peele can teach you. She is awfully clever at all those
things. Don’t you think Miss Mairs looks like Mary Anderson?”
“Mary Anderson?”
“Yes, the actress, you know.”
“I have never seen her.”
The girl was visibly embarrassed. Another, who looked as if harbouring a
grin in her straight little mouth, came to the rescue.
“Oh, I do think Mr. Peele is so good-looking,” she exclaimed, with a
fine show of animation. “We all think you are to be congratulated.”
Patience smiled at the frank rudeness of this remark, and said nothing.
“You know Amy Murray was wild about him. She’s not here to-day, I
notice. We did think it too bad that he wouldn’t go out. Some of the
girls have met him here, but I never have. They say he is awfully
fascinating.”
“Oh, yes, he is fascinating,” said Patience.
“What have you been doing with yourself if you have never learned to
golf nor play tennis?” asked another girl, insolently. She was a tall
girl, with a wooden face, a tight mouth, and an “air.”
“Oh, I read, mostly,” said Patience, with an extremely bored air.
The mother of the third girl turned swiftly and smiled at the bride, a
humorous smile in which there was some pity. Patience had observed her
before. She was a tall woman with a slender figure of extreme elegance.
Her dark bright face was little older than her daughter’s. Her ease of
manner was so great that it was almost self-conscious.
“Oh, say!” she exclaimed, “don’t think we’re all like that. The girls
don’t have much time to read—that’s true—but after they settle down
they do, really. Hal reads French novels—the little reprobate!—We read
French novels too, but a lot else besides. Oh, really! Outsiders—the
people that only know society through the newspapers, don’t you
know?—misjudge us terribly, really. Some of the brightest women of the
world are in New York society—why shouldn’t they be? And if the girls
don’t study it’s their own fault; they certainly have every opportunity
under the sun. I was made to study. My father was old-fashioned, and had
no nonsense about him. I always say I was educated beyond my brains, but
I’d rather have it that way than the other. Now, I assure you I read
everything. I have a standing order on the other side with an English
and a French book-seller, to send me every book the minute it attracts
attention—”
“Oh, you’re real intellectual, you are,” drawled Hal’s mocking voice.
The lady turned with a start and a little flush.
“Oh, Hal!” she cried gaily, “how you do take the starch out of one.”
“You’ve got enough to stock a laundry, so you needn’t worry. I’ve come
to rescue my fair sister-in-law before you talk her to death. Come,
Patience.”
Patience arose with alacrity, and followed her out of the house.
“Don’t you like her?” she asked.
“Oh, immensely. She’s as bright as a woman can be who has so little time
to think about it. She’s a tall and majestic pillar of Society, you
know, and she carries it—the intellect, not the pillar—round like a
chip on her shoulder. That makes me weary at times. I’ve heard her talk
for an hour without stopping. The only thing that makes me forgive her
is her slang. We have a match occasionally.”
“Her daughter doesn’t look as if she used slang.”
“Oh, she doesn’t. She’s no earthly use whatever. Are you enjoying
yourself?”
“Not particularly. But it’s a lovely scene.”
The lawns, and knolls, and woods were kaleidoscopic with fashionettes in
gay attire, shifting continually. There were not men enough to mar the
brilliant effect. The music of birds soared above the chatter of girls,
the sound of wood and brass. The river flashed away into the distance, a
silver girdle about Earth’s green gown.
“Yes, very pret,” said Hal. “But come, I’m going to introduce you to my
latest.”
“You didn’t tell me that you had a latest.”
“I’ve only met him a few times—he’s from Boston. I expect I forgot
about him.”
They were walking over the lawns toward the Tea House, a long low rustic
building which stood on the edge of the slope. A hubbub of voices
floated through the windows, peals of laughter, affected shrieks.
“A lot of my intimates are there,” said Hal. “I’ve managed to get them
together. May is doing the hostess act with her accustomed grace and
charm, and I’m taking a half hour off.”
They went round to the front of the house and entered. It was an airy
structure of polished maple. Little tables, each with a delicate
tea-service, were scattered about with artistic irregularity; round the
wall ran a divan, luxurious, but not too low for whaleboned forms. On
this the girls were stiffly lounging. The men were more at their ease.
All were smoking, the girls daintily, but firmly.
“Hal! Hal! sweet Queen Hal!” cried one of the young men, rising to his
feet. “I’ve been keeping this place—directly in the middle—for you.
See, it shall be a throne.” He piled three cushions atop, and with
exaggerated homage led her forward amidst the ejaculatory applause of
the others.
“Isn’t Norry too witty?” said one girl to Patience, as she made room for
her, “and so original! Whoever else would have thought of such a
thing?—although Hal ought to be a queen, don’t you think so? We just
rave about her. Do you smoke? try my kind.”
Patience, thankful that at last she could do something like these
people, accepted the cigarette. During her three months’ trip she had
not smoked, as Beverly thought it shocking.
“Mr. Wynne,” cried Hal, suddenly, “come over here and talk to my
sister-in-law. Patience, this is the young man from Boston, famous as
the only New Englander whose ancestors did not come over on the ‘May
Flower.’”
A man with a smooth serious face rose from his cushions and came
forward.
“Awfully good-looking,” murmured the girl who had proffered the
cigarette, “and wonderfully smart, considering he’s not a New Yorker.
It’s too bad he’s so beastly poor, for he’s terribly _épris_ with Hal.”
The young man, who had paused a moment to speak with Hal, inserted
himself as best he could between Patience and her new acquaintance.
“I am glad you are here,” murmured the bride. “You do not look quite at
home, and I am not, either.”
He smiled with instant sympathy. “Oh, I don’t care very much for
society, and I don’t like to see women smoke. It’s an absurd prejudice
to have in these progressive days, but I can’t help it.”
“You mean you don’t like to see Miss Peele smoke,” said Patience,
mischievously.
He flushed, then laughed. “Well, perhaps that is it. They are all
charming, these girls, but there is something about Miss Peele that
distinguishes her. Did you ever notice it?”
“Oh, yes. She is herself, and these others are twelve for a dozen.”
“That is it.” He glanced about at the girls in their bright gowns, which
clung to their tiny waists and hips, their narrow chests and modest
busts, with the wrinkleless perfection that has made the modern milliner
the god he is. Their polished skin and brilliant shallow eyes, their
elegant sexless forms, their haughty poise and supercilious air, laid
aside among themselves but always in reserve, their consciousness of
caste, were the several parts of a unique and homogeneous effect, which,
Patience confided to Mr. Wynne, must mark out the New York girl in
whatever wilds she trod.
“Oh, it does,” he said. “The New York girl is _sui generis_, and so
thoroughly artificial a product that it seems incredible she can exist
through another generation. I will venture to predict that the species
will be extinct in three, and that American women of a larger and more
human type will gradually be drawn into New York, and found a new race,
so to speak. Why, it seems to me that the children of these women must
be pigmies—imagine one of those girls being the mother of a man. It is
well that New York is not America.”
Involuntarily Patience’s eyes wandered to Hal. Her waist was as small,
her figure as unwomanly as the others.
“It is true,” said Wynne, answering her thought; “but she is so charming
that one is quite willing she should do nothing further for the human
race.”
Patience burst into a light laugh.
“What’s the matter?” asked Wynne.
“It suddenly struck me—the almost comical difference between these
girls and the ‘Y’s,’ and the ‘King’s Daughters.’ It does not seem
possible that such types can exist within ten miles of each other. I
should explain that I have passed the last three years in a country
town.”
“It is odd how religion holds its own in those small places. It is
opera, theatre, balls, Browning societies, everything to those people
shut out of the manifold distractions of cities. Religion seems to be
the one excitement of the restricted life. Human nature demands some
sort of emotional outlet—”
“What on earth are you two talking about?” cried the girl on the other
side. “Will you have another cigarette, Mrs. Beverly?—that is what we
shall all call you, you know. Mr. Wynne, please talk to me a while.
Isn’t this Tea House too sweet?”
“It is more,—it is angelic,” said Wynne, gravely.
“Oh! you’re guying!” Even her voice pouted. “Oh! please shake those
ashes off my gown—quick!—thanks. Oh, your eyes are grey. I thought
they were brown. I’m afraid of grey eyes, aren’t you, Mrs. Beverly—Oh,
dear! your eyes are grey too. What ever shall I do?” and she cast up her
hands. Even her sleek hair seemed to quiver.
“It is the misfortune of the American race to run to grey eyes,” said
Wynne. “Habit should have steeled you by this time—”
“Oh, he made a pun! he made a pun!” cried the girl.
“I did not!—I beg pardon, but I never did such a thing in my life,”
cried Wynne, indignantly; and Patience felt suddenly depressed, although
she too had found a friend in habit.
Hal rose while the girl was lisping mock apologies.
“I’ve got to go,” she said. “Isn’t it hateful? But I must go and do my
duty. Patience, you must come too. Why are you blocking the doorway, Mr.
Wynne?”
“I am going with you.”
“Really? Well, bye-bye;” and the three went off, followed by a gentle
chorus of regrets.
“Patience, my dear,” said Hal, “there is a group of people over there
looking hideously bored. You go and cheer them up, while I do my duty by
those austere and venerable dames who are staring through their
lorgnettes at the dining-room windows—”
“Oh, Hal, I can’t! Don’t send me to those people alone. What can I say
to them?”
“Patience, my dear, this is a world of woe. One day you will be
châtelaine of this place and be giving garden-parties on your own
account, so you’d better take the kindergarten course, and be thankful
for the chance. Go on.”
Patience walked unwillingly over to a group of four women seated under a
drooping oak. She had forgotten the names of nine tenths of the guests,
but she recognised Mrs. Laurence Gibbs, a plain rather dowdy little
woman with sad face and abstracted gaze. Beside her on the rustic seat
was a woman who gave a dominant impression of teeth: they fairly flashed
in the shadows. In a chair sat a woman of remarkable prettiness. She
would have been a beauty had her features been larger, so regular were
they, so sweet her expression, so soft her colouring of pink and white
and brown, so tall and full her figure. In another chair was a young
woman of no beauty but much distinction. Her prematurely white hair was
curled and tied at the base of her head with a black ribbon, realising
an eighteenth century effect. Her face was dark and brilliant. She sat
forward, her slim figure full of suppressed energy. She had been talking
with much animation, but as Patience approached she paused abruptly. The
pretty woman burst into a merry laugh.
“Mrs. Lafarge was just remarking what hideous bores garden parties are,”
she said audaciously.
“Oh, you needn’t mind me,” said Patience, sitting down on the grass, as
there was no other seat. “I quite agree with you.”
“Oh, that’s awfully good of you, Mrs. Peele,” said Mrs. Lafarge, “and
awfully mean of you, Mary Gallatin. Of course this is one of the
loveliest places on the Hudson, and I love to come here; but there are
not enough men. That’s the whole trouble.”
“That always seems to be the cry with you American women,” said she of
the teeth. “You have no resources. You should be independent of men.
They seem to be of you.”
“Perhaps you are driven to resources in Russia,” said Mrs. Gallatin,
sweetly, “but your observation is faulty. We are spoiled over here, and
that is the reason we grumble occasionally.”
“You see we haven’t a large leisure class, as you have,” said Mrs.
Gibbs, hastily.
“I really think the reason men avoid garden parties is that they are
afraid they might be betrayed into sentiment,” broke in Mrs. Lafarge.
“They do protect themselves so fiercely. How did you ever make Tom
Gallatin propose, Mary dear? He had the most ideal bachelor apartment in
New York, and entrenched himself as in a fortress.”
“Oh, one or two fall by the wayside every year, you know, and this time
Gally happened to stumble over me. Poor Gally, he told me yesterday that
he hadn’t seen me to speak to for a month. The idea of the lower classes
grumbling. I should like to know who works as hard as we do. How do you
manage to do the society and the charity, both?” she asked of Mrs.
Gibbs. “Does Mr. Gibbs ever see _you_?”
“I never neglect my husband,” said Mrs. Gibbs, sternly. “When I must
neglect anything it is society. I came to-day because I longed for a
glimpse of the country, and I have not been able to go to Woody Cliffs
yet—the poverty is so terrible this year. I wish you would come with me
sometime and see for yourself—”
“God forbid! I never could stand the smells. I give my pastor so much a
year, and I really think that’s doing one’s share. Of course if you like
it, it’s another thing.”
“Like it!” cried the Russian. “You speak as if it were her pastime. I
cannot express how gratifying it is to me to meet a serious woman
occasionally in New York society.”
“I had a lovely time in Petersbourg,” murmured Mrs. Gallatin. “I never
met an offensive Russian inside of the country. Poor America!”
“I don’t understand,” said the foreigner, stiffly.
“Oh, I am sure you understand English—you express yourself so clearly.
We all weep over America occasionally, you know. It is a sort of dumping
ground for foreigners,—who sit at our feet, and abuse us.”
“One is at liberty to abuse insolence,” said the Russian, with
suppressed wrath, “and the women of New York are the most insolent I
have ever met.”
“Oh, not among ourselves—not really. We think it insolent in outsiders
to elbow their way in—”
“Mary! Mary!” cried Mrs. Gibbs. “I hear that you spent some years with
Miss Harriet Tremont,” she continued, addressing Patience. “She passed
her entire life in charitable work, did she not?”
“Oh, she did, and she enjoyed it too. Don’t you?”
Mrs. Gallatin laughed softly.
“Enjoy it?” said Mrs. Gibbs. “I never have looked at it in that way. I
think it my duty to aid my miserable fellow beings, and I am thankful
that I am able to aid them.”
“Odd, the fads different people have,” murmured Mrs. Gallatin. “Now mine
is Russians. What is yours, Leontine?”
“Oh, Mary, you deserve to be shaken,” exclaimed Mrs. Lafarge, as the
Russian sprang to her feet and stalked away.
“I can’t help it. She’s a boor, and I wish she’d go back and live with a
Cossack. Foreigners are all very well on their native heath, but as soon
as they are transplanted to this side and treated with common decency
they become intolerable. They grovel at our feet, swell because we
receive them, and sneer at us behind our backs.”
“I think you have a way of irritating them, my dear,” said Mrs. Gibbs.
“You are a very naughty girl. Won’t you sit up here by me, Mrs. Peele? I
am afraid the ground is damp. I shall ask you some time to explain to me
Miss Tremont’s methods. I often feel sadly at sea.”
“Oh, dear!” said Patience, “I doubt if I know them. I just followed her
blindly. I may as well confess it—I didn’t take a very great interest
in the work.”
“Oh, how lovely!” cried Mrs. Gallatin.
“I am sorry that I have made a mistake,” said Mrs. Gibbs, stiffly.
“Oh, well—you know—there is such a thing as getting too much of
anything—”
“Is there?” Mrs. Gibbs rose, and shook out her skirts with an absent
air. “I think I will go over and talk to Mrs. Peele;” and she walked
away with an awkward gait, her head bent forward. She certainly did not
have an “air.”
“Dear! dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Gallatin. “Just think! you have lost the
interest of Mrs. Laurence Gibbs. She might have invited you to her
exciting musicales or her cast-iron dinners.”
“Oh, don’t abuse her,” said Mrs. Lafarge. “She is a harmless little
soul, and does what she thinks is right.”
“She is happier too,” said Patience, her thoughts in Mariaville. “It is
odd, but they always are. I think it’s because they’ve unconsciously
cultivated the supremest and most inspired form of egoism, and naturally
they get a tremendous amount of joy out of it—”
“Hear! Hear!” cried Mrs. Gallatin. “She analyses!”
“My dear, you mustn’t do that out loud,” said Mrs. Lafarge. “You’ll be a
terrible failure if you do.”
“That would be a pity, because you are so pretty,” said Mrs. Gallatin,
smiling. “I’ve been staring at you whenever I’ve had the chance, and you
don’t know how many charming things I’ve heard said of you this
afternoon.”
“Oh, have you really?” asked Patience, warming instantly, as much to the
kindly sympathy as to the agreeable words.
“Indeed I have. That violet against your hair and skin makes a perfect
picture of you. _N’est-ce pas_, Leontine?”
“It certainly does.”
“I think you are both very kind,” said Patience, with a young impulse to
be frank. “I feel so out of it all. You see this is my first experience
of this sort of thing, and some of those girls have made me feel like a
barbarian.”
“They’d be glad of your freshness, not only of looks but of mind,” said
Mary Gallatin. “I should think it would be a blessed relief to have some
other sort of interest but just this,” and she swept out her arm
disdainfully. “That’s the reason I go, go, all the time. I don’t dare
think. When you have no talent, and are not intellectual, and not
frantic about your husband, what are you to do? There’s no other
resource, in spite of that Russian prig. I’d give a good deal to be
beginning it all again at eighteen.”
“There is no spice in life without violent contrasts,” said Mrs.
Lafarge. “That’s the real reason why so many of our good young friends
are larky. The trouble with this world is that although there is variety
enough in it, each variety travels in a different orbit. The social
scheme is all wrong, somehow.”
“True! True!” said Mrs. Gallatin, plaintively. “But I see they are about
to eat. The open air always makes me hungry. That is variety enough for
the present.”
As they crossed the lawn she laid her arm about Patience’s waist. “Bev
doesn’t like society,” she said, “and I’m afraid you’re not in any
danger of satiety; but don’t think out loud when you are in it. Leontine
never does, do you, Leontine? And she is clever too. It must be
delightful to be clever. Heigh-ho! Well, you must be sure to come to see
me anyhow. I feel positive we shall be friends. Come some morning at
eleven. That is just after I have had my tub and am back in bed again. I
love to see my friends then. Oh, dear, we must scatter. There are not
two seats together anywhere. Bye-bye.”
III
“Thank God they’re gone.” Hal divested herself of her tight smart frock,
got into a lawn gown, lit a cigarette, and extended herself on the divan
in her bedroom. “Well, Patience, how did you like it?”
“I don’t think I made the hit you expected.”
“N-o-o-o, you didn’t exactly create a _furore_; but I don’t know that
any one could do that with so much oxygen round: makes peoples so
drowsy, don’t you know? But you were admired awfully. And then you are
an unconventional beauty, and that always takes longer. Now, May made a
howling sensation, but people are tired of her already. That type
doesn’t wear. My plain phiz wears much better, because there was never
any chance of reaction with me. Oh, dear, here comes Bev.”
A knock, and in response to Hal’s languid invitation, Beverly entered.
He was in evening clothes, and as handsome as ever; but he looked rather
sulky.
“You might have met me when I got home,” he said to his wife. “I haven’t
seen you since luncheon.”
“Tragic!” exclaimed Hal.
“I was so tired I just drifted in here and fell in a heap,” said
Patience, apologetically. “My skull feels empty, and aches inside and
out.”
“Then you don’t like society?” said Mr. Peele, eagerly.
“Oh, very much indeed! I think it is delightful, delightful! Only the
first time is rather trying, you know. I met some charming people, and
want to meet them again.”
Peele grunted, and lit his cigar. His eyes devoured his wife’s fair
face. Patience looked at Hal.
“My mother says you carried yourself very well,” remarked Mr. Peele,
gracefully; “that after the first you were quite at your ease. That was
one reason I went away: I was so afraid you’d break down, or something.”
Patience flushed angrily, but made no reply. She had learned that even a
slight dispute would move her husband to a violent outbreak.
“She looked more to the manor born than half the guests,” said Hal, “and
if you took her out next winter she’d become the rage—”
“I don’t wish my wife to be the rage! And she is going to stay here. If
she loves me as much as I love her she’ll be as contented with my
society as I am with hers.”
“As if any woman ever loved a man as much as he loved her,” remarked
Miss Peele. “I am sure Patience is no such idiot.”
“What?” cried Beverly. Patience rose hastily.
“I think I’ll go and brush my hair,” she said, moving to the door; but
he sprang to his feet and stood in front of her.
“Tell me!” he cried, his voice shaking. “Don’t you love me as much as I
love you?”
“Oh, Beverly,” she said, impatiently, “how can you get into such tempers
about nothing? You have asked me if I loved you about nine thousand
times since we were married. How am I to know how much you love me? Have
you a plummet and line about you?”
“You are dodging the question. And you have never asked me if I loved
you—not once—”
Patience slipped past him and ran down the hall to her room. Before she
could close the door he was beside her. He caught her in his arms and
kissed her violently.
“I shall always be mad about you,” he said. “And I believe you are
growing cold. You have not been the same lately. Sometimes I think that
you shrink from me as you did at first. Tell me what I have done. I’d
sell my soul to keep you. If you are tired of me, I’ll kill myself—”
She disengaged herself. “Listen,” she said; “I’ve tried to explain—but
you don’t seem to understand—that I didn’t want to fall in love with
you—not in that way. That should not come first. Then when I found
myself made of common clay, I said that I would forget that I had ever
been Patience Sparhawk, and begin life again as Mrs. Beverly Peele.
Novelty helped me; and when one is travelling, one’s ego appears to be
dissolved into the changing scene—one is simply a sensitised plate. But
now I am beginning to feel like Patience Sparhawk again, and it
frightens me a little.”
Beverly, to whom the larger part of these remarks were pure Greek,
blanched to the lips.
“Then you regret it,” he stammered.
“I didn’t say that. I only mean that I seem to spend life readjusting
myself; and that now I seem to be all at sea again.”
“You don’t love me any longer! Oh, God!” and he flung himself on the
floor, and burying his face in a chair, groaned aloud.
Patience was disgusted, but his suffering, primary as it was, touched
her. Moreover, her broad vein of philosophy was active once more. She
was by no means prepared to leave him—the tide was ebbing very slowly.
She sat down on the chair, and lifted his face to her lap. “There,” she
said, “I am sorry I spoke. You don’t seem to understand me. If you did,
though, this scene could never have occurred. But I love you—of
course—and I do not regret it. So get up and bathe your eyes. It is
after seven o’clock.”
He kissed her hands, his face glowing again. The words were all
sufficient to him. “Then if you love me you will see how happy I’ll make
you,” he exclaimed. “I’ll never leave you a minute I can help; but if
you stop loving me I’ll make life hell for you.”
“I thought you said you’d kill yourself.”
“Well, I would, but I’d get square with you first.”
“Well, suppose you go into your own room now, and let me dress for
dinner.”
IV
The summer passed agreeably enough. Circumstances prevented Beverly
bestowing an undue amount of his society on his wife, and until a woman
is wholly tired of a man she retains her self respect. Moreover,
Patience chose to believe herself in love with him: “it had been in her
original estimate of herself that she had been at fault.” She persuaded
herself that she loved him as much as she could love any man, and she
did her pathetic best to shed some glimmer of spiritual light into a man
who might have been compounded in a laboratory, so little soul was in
him. But despite the clay which was hers, she loved it a great deal for
a time in loving it at all, for that was her nature.
She went to several other garden-parties, and found them more amusing
than her own, although the young men that frequented them were quite
uninteresting: even Beverly scintillated by contrast, for he, at least,
had a temper; these more civilised youths appeared to have no emotions
whatever.
Peele Manor was full of company all summer. Patience found the married
men more entertaining than the younger ones, although they usually made
love to her; but after she had outgrown her surprise and disapproval of
their direct and business-like methods, it amused her to fence with
them. They had more self-control than Beverly Peele, and were a trifle
more skilful, but their general attitude was, as she expressed it to
Hal: “There’s no time to lose, dontcherknow! Life is short, and New
York’s a busy place. What the deuce is there to wait for? Sentiment? Oh,
sentiment be hanged! It takes too much time.”
Hal was an accomplished hostess, and allowed her guests little time to
make love or to yawn. There were constant riding and driving and
yachting parties, picnics and tennis and golf. In the evening they
danced, romped, or had impromptu “Varieties.”
Patience was fascinated with the life, although she still had the sense
of being an alien, and moments of terrible loneliness. But she was too
much of a girl not to take a girl’s delight in the dash and glitter and
picturesqueness of society. She was not popular, although she quickly
outgrew any external points of difference; but the essential difference
was felt and resented.
On the whole there was concord between herself and her mother-in-law.
Mr. Peele she barely knew. His family saw little of him. He had not
attended the wedding. When Patience had arrived at Peele Manor after her
trip, he had kissed her formally, and remarked that he hoped she “would
make something of Beverly.”
He was an undersized man with scant iron grey hair whose tint seemed to
have invaded his complexion. His lips were folded on each other so
closely, that Patience watched them curiously at table: when eating they
merely moved apart as if regulated by a spring; their expression never
changed. His eyes were dark and rather dull, his nose straight and fine,
his hands small and very white. He was not an eloquent man at the bar;
he owed his immense success to his mastery of the law, to a devilish
subtlety, and to his skill at playing upon the weak points of human
nature. No man could so adroitly upset an “objection,” no man so terrify
a witness. It was said of him that he played upon a jury with the
consummate art of a great musician for his instrument. He rarely lost a
case.
His voice was very soft, his manners exquisite. He was never known to
lose his temper. His cold aristocratic face looked the sarcophagus of
buried passions.
He deeply resented his children’s failure to inherit his brain, but in
his inordinate pride of birth, forgave them, for they bore the name of
Peele. Hal was his favourite, for she, at least, was bright.
May admired her sister-in-law “to death,” as she phrased it, and bored
her with attentions. Patience preferred Honora, who puzzled and repelled
her, but assuredly could not be called superficial, although her claims
to intellectuality were based upon her preference for George Eliot and
George Meredith to the lighter order of fiction, and upon her knowledge
of the history of the Catholic Church.
One day, as Patience was crossing the lawn in front of the house, May
called to her from the hall, beckoning excitedly. She and Hal and Honora
were standing by a table on which was a saucer half full of what
appeared to be dead leaves. As Patience entered, May lifted the saucer
to her sister-in-law’s nostrils.
“Why? What?” asked Patience, then paused.
“Oh,—what a faint, delicious, far-away perfume,” she said after a
moment. “What is it?”
May dropped the saucer and clapped her hands. Hal laughed as if much
gratified. Honora’s eyes wandered to the landscape with an absent and
introspective regard.
“What is it?” asked Patience again.
“Why, it’s dried strawberry leaves,” said May. “Don’t you know that they
say in the South that you can’t perceive their perfume unless every drop
of blood in your veins is blue? The common people can’t smell it at
all.”
Patience blushed and moved her head disdainfully, but she thrilled with
pleasure.
“Won’t you come up and see my room?” said Honora, softly. “You’ve never
called on me yet, and I think I have a very pretty room.”
“Oh, I’ll be delighted,” said Patience, who was half consciously
avoiding Beverly: Peele Manor was without guests for a few hours.
“Now you must tell me if you like my room as much as you do me,” said
Honora, who looked more like an angel than ever, in a white mull frock
and blue sash. Her manner to Patience was evenly affectionate, with an
undercurrent of subtle sadness and reproach.
As she opened the door of her room, Patience exclaimed with admiration.
The ceiling was blue, frescoed with golden stars, the walls with
celestial visions. A blue carpet strewn with lilies covered the floor,
fluttering curtains of blue silk and white muslin, the old windows. From
the dome of the brass bedstead mull curtains hung like clouds. A faint
odour of incense mixed with the sweet perfumes of summer.
“Is it not beautiful?” said Honora, in a rapt voice. “It makes me think
of heaven. Does it not you? It was dear Aunt Honora’s last Christmas
gift to me. It was so sweet of her, for of course I am only the poor
cousin.”
Patience looked at her, wondering, as she had often done, whether the
girl were a fool, or deeper than any one of her limited experience.
Honora rarely talked, but she had reduced listening to a fine art, and
was a favourite in society. Whether she had nothing to say, or whether
she had divined that her poverty would make eloquence unpardonable,
Patience had not determined. One thing was patent, however: she managed
her aunt, and her wants were never ignored.
“Now,” she said softly, “I am going to show you something that I don’t
show to every one—but you are dear Beverly’s wife.” She folded a screen
and revealed an altar covered with cloth of silver, antique
candlesticks, and heavy silver cross.
“My faith which sustains me in all the trials of life,” whispered
Honora, crossing herself. “Ah, if I could have made dear Beverly a
convert. Once he seemed balancing—but he slipped away. I have tried to
win Hal and May to the true faith too; but we were always so much more
to each other—Beverly and I,—playmates from childhood. I think I know
him better than anybody in the world.”
Patience felt an interloper, a thief and an alien, but out of her new
schooling answered carelessly: “Oh, he is awfully fond of you, but I
don’t think he is inclined to be religious. This room is too sanctified
to speak above a whisper in. Come to my room and talk to me awhile.”
Honora opened a door by the head of her bed, and they passed through a
large lavatory, then through Beverly’s room to that of the bride, a
square room whose windows framed patches of Hudson and Palisade, and
daintily furnished in lilac and white. A photograph of Miss Tremont hung
between the windows. On one side were shelves containing John Sparhawk’s
library.
Beverly arose from a deep chair, where he had been smoking and glowering
upon the Hudson. Patience caught Honora firmly by the waist and pushed
her into the most comfortable chair in the room, then with much skill
engaged her in a discussion with Beverly upon the subject of music, the
one subject besides horse which interested him.
V
In August the girls went to Newport, and Patience became very tired of
her mother-in-law. May returned engaged to a wealthy Cuban, who had been
dancing attendance on her blondinitude for some months past, and Mrs.
Peele became so amiable that she forgot to lecture her daughter-in-law
or irritate her with the large vigilance of her polaric eyes. The girls
left again for Lenox and Tuxedo. On the first of January the family
moved to their town house for the winter.
Patience was alone with her husband.
During the first three days of this new connubial solitude it snowed
heavily. Beverly could not ride nor drive, and wandered restlessly
between the stable and the library, where his wife sat before the
blazing logs.
There were some two thousand volumes at Peele Manor. Patience had had no
time to read since her marriage, but on the morning of the family’s
departure she made for the library, partly in self defence, partly with
pleasurable anticipation. She hoped that Beverly would succumb to the
charms of the stable, where there were many congenial spirits and a
comfortable parlour; but she had barely discovered Heine’s prose and had
read but ten pages of the “Reisebilder,” when the door opened, and he
came in. She merely nodded, and went on reading. She was barely
conscious of his presence, for Heine is a magician, and she was already
under his spell.
“Well, you might shut up your book and talk to me,” said Beverly,
pettishly, flinging himself into a chair opposite her. “This is a nice
way to treat a fellow on a stormy day.”
“Oh, you read too,” murmured Patience.
“No, I will not. I want to talk to you.”
Patience closed the book over her finger and looked at him impatiently.
Then an idea occurred to her, and she spoke with her usual
impulsiveness.
“Look, Beverly,” she said, “you and I have to spend many months alone
together, and if we are to make a success of matrimony we must be
companions, and to be companions we must have similar tastes. Now I’ll
make a bargain with you: I’ll try to like horses if you’ll try to like
books. On pleasant days I’ll ride and drive with you, and when it storms
we’ll read together here in the library. I am sure you will like it
after a time. If you find it tiresome to read to yourself I’ll read
aloud. I don’t mind, and then we can talk it over.”
“All right,” said Beverly. “Anything you say. What’s that you’re reading
now?”
“Heine’s prose. He is wonderful—such a style and such sardonic wit, and
such exquisite thoughts. I’ll begin all over again. Now light a cigar
and make yourself comfortable.”
For a half hour she read aloud, and then Mr. Peele remarked,—
“Hang it! The skating is spoiled for a week.”
“Oh, Beverly, you haven’t been listening.”
“Well, I don’t like it very much. He skips around so. Besides, I always
did hate Germans. Give me America every time.”
“Well, read something American then,” said Patience, crossly.
“You find something and read it to me. I like to hear your voice, even
if I can’t keep my mind on it. Wait a while though. I guess I’ll go and
see how the stable is getting on.”
He bent down to kiss his wife, but she was once more absorbed, and did
not see him. He snatched the book from her with an oath and flung it
across the room. She sprang to her feet with flashing eyes, pushed him
aside with no gentle hand, and ran after the book.
“You sha’n’t read that book!” he cried. “The idea of forgetting your
husband for a book—_a book_! You are a lovely wife! You are a disgrace
to the name! You would rather read than kiss your husband! I’ll lock
this room up, damned if I don’t.”
“I’ll go and live with Miss Beale and do Temperance work,” sobbed
Patience. “I won’t live with you.”
“Oh, you won’t—what? What did I marry you for? My God! What did I marry
you for? My life is hell, for I’m no fool. I know you don’t love me. You
married me for my money.”
“I wish I had,” she exclaimed passionately, then controlled herself. “I
hope we are not going to squabble in the usual commonplace way. I shall
not, at any rate. If you lose your temper, you can have the quarrel all
to yourself. I shall not pay any attention to you. Now go out to the
stable and cool off, and when you come back I’ll read something else to
you.”
“Do you love me?”
“Oh, yes—yes.”
And Beverly disappeared, slamming the door behind him.
“I wonder if any one on earth has such a temper,” she thought. “And
people believe that vulgarity and lack of control are confined to the
lower classes! What is the matter with civilisation anyhow? I can only
explain my own remarkable aberration in this way: youthful love is a
compound of curiosity, a surplus of vitality, and inherited
sentimentalism. It is likely to arrive just after the gamut of
children’s diseases has run its course. Of course the disease is merely
a complacent state of the system until the germ arrives, which same is
the first attractive and masterful man. All diseases run their course,
however. I could not be more insensible to Beverly Peele’s dead
ancestors out in the vault than I am to him. No woman is capable of
loving at nineteen. She is nothing but an overgrown child, a chaos of
emotions and imagination. There ought to be a law passed that no woman
could marry until she was twenty-eight. Then, perhaps a few of us would
feel less like—Well, there is nothing to do but make the best of it,
regard life as a highly seasoned comedy, in which one is little more
than a spectator, after all—and at present I have Heine.”
Beverly did not return for an hour. When he did she rose at once, and
running her eye along the shelves, selected a volume of Webster’s
Speeches.
“You like politics,” she said; “and all of us should read the great
works of our great men. I’ll read the famous Seventh of March Speech.”
And she did, Beverly listening with considerable attention. When she had
finished he remarked enthusiastically,—
“Do you know what that speech has made me make up my mind to do? I’m
going to run for the Senate, and make speeches like that myself.”
Patience merely stared at him. She wondered if he were really something
more than a fool; if there was a sort of post-graduate course.
“What makes you look at me like that? Don’t you think I can?”
“Well—” She hardly knew what to say.
“Well! Is that the way you encourage a fellow? You are a nice wife. Here
my father has been at me all my life to do something, and just as soon
as I make up my mind, my wife laughs at me.”
“I didn’t laugh at you.”
“Well, it’s all the same. If I never do anything, it’ll be your fault.”
“Go to the Senate just as fast as ever you can get there. And you might
as well spend the rest of the day studying Webster; but suppose you read
to yourself for a while: my throat is tired.”
“I don’t like to read to myself.”
“Well, anyhow, I hear Lawson coming. Luncheon is ready.”
The table in the dining-room had been divested of its leaves, and the
young couple sat only a few feet apart. The room had once been a
banqueting-hall. It was very large and dark. The white light filtered
meagrely through the small panes. The wind moaned through the naked
elms.
“The country is awfully dull in winter,” remarked Patience. “I wish we
were in town.”
“That’s a beautiful speech to make to a husband. I don’t mind so long as
you are here.”
“Of course I am deeply flattered,” and she smiled upon him. There seemed
nothing else to do.
“Damn it!” cried Beverly, “this steak is as thin as a plate and burnt to
a cinder. Patience, I do wish you’d give some of your attention to
housekeeping and less to books. It is your place to see that things are
properly cooked, now that Honora is gone.”
“Oh, dear. I don’t know anything about cooking, or housekeeping,
either.”
“Well, then, I’d be much obliged if you’d learn as quickly as possible.
Take this steak out,” he said to the maid, “and bring some cold beef or
ham. Damn it! I might have known that when Honora went away I’d have
nothing fit to eat, with this new cook.”
But Patience refused to continue the conversation, and when the ham and
beef came he ate of them with such relish that his good-nature returned
as speedily as it had departed.
During the afternoon the scene of the morning was repeated with
variations, and the same might be said of the two following days. Then
came an interval of sleighing and skating. Then rain turned the snow to
slush, and once again Beverly exhibited the characteristics of a caged
tiger.
“I shall have nervous prostration before the winter is over,” thought
Patience, who was still determined to take the situation humorously,
still refused to face her former self. “I do wish the family would come
back, mother-in-law and all.”
Occasionally, despite Beverly’s indignant protests, she went to town for
the day, and shopped or paid calls with Hal. On one occasion they went
to see Rosita. That “beautiful young prima donna of ever increasing
popularity” wore black gauze over gold-coloured tights, and acted and
sang and danced and allured with consummate art. The opera house was
two-thirds crowded with men, although there was the usual matinée
contingent of girls and young married women.
“Well,” thought Patience, “she’s way ahead of me, for she’s made a
success of herself, at least, and is not bothered with scruples and
regrets.”
The winter dragged along as slowly as if time had lamed the old man,
then fallen asleep. The relations between Patience and Beverly became
very strained. His frequent tempers were alternated by sulks. He was
genuinely unhappy, for limited as he was, mentally and spiritually, he
was very human; and in his primitive way he loved his wife.
Patience’s resolution to go through life as a cynical humourist, deaf
and blind to the great wants of her nature, died hard, but it died at
last. Monotony accentuated fact, and the time came when pretence failed
her, and she visibly shrank from his lightest caress. The tide of horror
and loathing had risen slowly, but definitely. He threatened to kill
her, to commit suicide, to get a divorce; but his threats did not
disturb her. He was too weak to kill himself, too proud to make himself
ridiculous in the divorce courts, and too much in love to put her beyond
his reach. What sustained her was the hope that his passion would die a
natural death, and that they would then go their diverse ways as other
married people did,—that had come to seem to her the most blessed
meaning of the holy state of matrimony. Then she could enjoy her books,
and he would permit her to spend the winters in New York, or in travel.
Beverly’s affections, however, showed no sign of dissolution.
VI
One afternoon in March, Patience, glancing out of the library window,
saw Hal coming up the lawn from the path that led down the slope to the
station. She suppressed a war-whoop with which she and Rosita had been
used to awake the echoes of the Californian hills, opened the window,
and vaulted out.
“Well,” cried Miss Peele, as Patience ran toward her, “you do look glad
to see me, sure enough. Bev can’t be very exciting, for you don’t look
as if it were me particularly—just somebody. Oh, matrimony! matrimony!
I envy the women that have solved the problem in some other way—the
journalists and artists, and authors and actresses, and even the
suffragists, God rest them. Hello, there’s Bev. He looks as if he were
about to cry. What have you been doing to him?”
“I left him writing an order for some new kind of horse-feed,” said
Patience, indifferently. Her husband stood at the window, staring
gloomily at the beaming faces. When the girls entered the room he had
gone.
“He looks as if he had just been let out of the dark room. Do you beat
him? What do you suppose my mother will say?”
“Oh, I suppose he’s bored too. You see it’s nearly three months now. I
tried to make him read, but after the third day he went to sleep.”
Hal drew a low chair to the fire, close to the one Patience occupied.
She laughed merrily.
“Fancy your trying to make Bev intellectual! That would be a good
subject for a one-act farce. Well, I’ve come up here to tell you
something, and to talk it over. I, too, am contemplating matrimony.”
“Oh, don’t!” cried Patience.
“I believe that is usually the advice of married people, but the world
goes on marrying itself just the same. But my problem is much more
complicated than the average, for there are two men in the question.”
“Two? You don’t mean to say you don’t know your own mind?”
“That is exactly the fact in the case. You remember Reginald Wynne?
Well, Patience, I do like that man. I never liked any man one tenth as
much. I might say he’s the only serious man I’ve ever met, the only one,
to put it in another way, that I ever could take seriously as a man. He
has brains—he’s a lawyer, you know, and they say very fine things of
him—and he is so kind, and _strong_. When I am with him I don’t feel
frivolous and worldly and one of a dozen. If I have any better nature
and any apology for a brain, they are on top then. He is the last sort
of man I ever thought I’d fall in love with, but it takes us some years
to become acquainted with ourselves, doesn’t it? I do respect him so,
and it is such a novel sensation. He even makes me read. Fancy! And I’ve
even promised him that I won’t read any more French novels, excepting
those he selects, nor smoke cigarettes. So, you see, I am in love.
“But, Patience,” she continued with tragic emphasis, “he hasn’t a
red—and I know I’d be miserable, poor. When papa saw which way the wind
was blowing, he took me into the library and told me that although he
made fifty thousand dollars a year, we spent nearly all of it, and that
he should not have much to leave besides his life insurance—one hundred
thousand—which of course would go to mamma. It is a matter of honour
never to sell this place, and the revenue from the farm—which is to go
to Beverly—would keep it up in a small way. The town house is to be
May’s and mine; but what will that amount to? May and I have always
pretty well understood that if we want to keep on having the things that
habit has made a necessity to us, we must marry rich men! Oh, dear! Oh,
dear!”
“Well, the other man?”
“He has appeared on the scene lately. He is not the usual alternative by
any means, for he is very attractive in his way. He has the manners of
the man of the world, a _fin de siècle_ brain, and the devil in his eye.
He is rather good-looking and tremendously good form. And, my dear, he
has three cold millions. Think what I should be with three millions!
Fancy me in Boston on three or four hundred dollars a month. Oh,
Patience, what shall I do?” And Hal, the most undemonstrative of women,
laid her head on Patience’s knee and sobbed bitterly.
“I had to come to see you, Patience,” she continued after a moment. “I
have no one else; I could never have said a word of this to mamma or
May. And I like you better than any one in the world except Reginald
Wynne. And you seem to understand things. Do tell me what to do.”
“Do this: Be true to your ideals. If love means, and has always meant
more to you than anything else in the world, marry Reginald Wynne. If
money and power and luxury are the very essentials of happiness to you,
marry the other man. No temporary aberration can permanently divert
one’s paramount want from its natural course. As soon as the novelty has
gone, the ego swings back to its old point of view as surely as water
does that has been temporarily dammed. There is only one thing that
persists, and that is the ideal,—that habit of mind which is bred of
heredity and environment, even where care or consciousness is lacking.
It is as relentless and pitiless as the law of cause and effect. I
believe it would outlive a very leprosy of the soul. And it makes no
difference whether that ideal be great or small, high or low, its hold
is precisely the same, for it is individuality itself. Rosita is happy
because she has realised her ideal. Miss Tremont was happy because she
lived up to hers. Miss Beale was supremely satisfied with herself when
she let a man die whom she might have saved by smirching her ideals. The
religionists are happy generally, not through communion with the
presiding deity, as they imagine, but because they have arbitrarily
created a sort of spiritual Blackstone whom they delight to obey. The
author is happy when he toils, even without hope of reward. Martyrs have
known ecstasy—But one could go on for a week. Don’t marry Wynne if you
feel that you would be unhappy in poverty after the first few months;
and if you feel that great wealth without love would be misery, don’t
marry the other.”
“Oh, I could like Latimer Burr well enough,” said Hal, staring gloomily
at the fire; “and after a time I suppose I’d forget. You see, I have
been in love so short a time that the wrench would be a good deal less
violent than the wrench from luxury—I’d soon get over it, I expect. But
I do like him—I never thought I could feel like this.”
Patience fondled the sleek head, but she was not in a mood to feel in
sympathy with love. The only thing that to her seemed of paramount
importance was to fix a clear eye on the future.
“You see,” she said, “the present is ever with us, and the past recedes
farther and farther. If the rich man can give you what you most want,
time will make you forget the very sensation of love. If you marry Wynne
and the love goes, you will have equal difficulty to recall it, and
nothing to compensate in the present.”
“I’m not afraid that it would go; but I know that I should be thoroughly
miserable poor, and make him miserable too. I do love it all so—all
that money means—why, one can’t even be well groomed without money. It
has gone to make up nine-tenths of my composition; the other tenth is
only a bit of miserable wax. But I love this new feeling, and I never
believed that anything could be so sweet. Oh, dear; I’ll have to dry up.
Here comes Bev.”
“Remember this,” said Patience, “and let it console you: however you
feel or are torn, you’ll do one thing only,—follow along the line of
least resistance.”
Beverly entered and kissed his sister affectionately. Her back was to
the light, and he did not notice her swollen eyes.
“Well, you are looking hilarious,” she remarked in her usual flippant
tones. “Has Tammany gone lame, or Mrs. Langtry refused to take her five
bars?”
“My wife doesn’t love me!” Beverly had brooded upon his wrongs for two
months. Hal’s words were as a match to a mine.
“Oh!” exclaimed Patience, springing to her feet, “don’t let us have a
scene for Hal’s benefit. Do cultivate a little good taste, if good sense
is too far beyond you.”
Her words were not soothing, and Beverly exploded in one of his most
violent passions. He tore up and down the room, banging his fist
alternately on the table, the mantel, and the books, and once he hit the
panel of a door so heavy a blow that it sprang. Patience sat down and
turned her back. Hal endeavoured to stop him; but he had found a
listener, and would discharge his mind of its accumulated virus. He told
the tale of the winter in spasmodic gusts, hung and fringed with oaths.
Finally he flung himself out of the room, shouting all the way across
the hall.
For a moment there was an intense and meaning silence between the two
women; then Hal stood up and laid her palms to her head.
“Patience!” she said, “Patience! this is awful. What have I done? Oh,
does it really mean anything? I have seen Bev go into tempers all my
life—but—Tell me, please—does this really mean anything—”
“Whether it does or does not it need not worry you beyond warning you
against mistakes on your own account. I married with my eyes open, and I
can take care of myself. Don’t marry your rich man unless you like him
well enough to pretend to like him a good deal more. If you do, you’ll
end by loathing him and yourself—and what is more, he’ll know it.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think I am as intense as you are—but what do you
suppose makes Beverly such a wild animal? We are none of us like that,
and never have been, as far as I know, although some of the old boys
were pretty gay, not to say lawless. But for two or three generations we
seem to have been a fairly well-conducted lot. Beverly is almost a
freak.”
Patience crossed the room, and lifting down a volume of Darwin’s
“Descent of Man” read from the chapter on Civilised Nations:—
“‘With mankind some of the worst dispositions which
occasionally, without any assignable cause, make their
appearance in families, may perhaps be reversions to a savage
state from which we are not removed by very many generations.’”
VII
Two weeks later Patience received a letter from Hal which induced no
surprise.
The die is cast [it read]. Reginald Wynne has gone back to
Boston, and I am going to marry Latimer Burr. On the first of
April we sail for Europe—mamma and May and I—to get our
things.
Don’t imagine that I am doing the novel-heroine act, and
sprinkling my pillow o’ nights. I did feel terribly, and I’ll
never love any other man; but the thing is done, and done for
the best, and that is the end of it. What you said about
following along the line of least resistance is as sure as love
and fate and a good many other things; for what Latimer Burr can
give me I want more than what Reginald Wynne can give me, and it
drew me like a magnet. And the other thing you said is equally
true,—that the only joy in life is to pursue your ideals to the
bitter end. Mine are not lofty, but they are _me_, and that is
all there is to it. I shall not weep it out, because I’ve no
beauty to lose, and weeping does no earthly good, anyway. If it
would give Wynne Burr’s fortune I’d drown New York.
We’ll be back on the first of June. We’re only going over to
order things. I wish you joy of Honora. It’s too bad Bev is so
much in love with you, or you might switch him off on to her.
Oh, Patience, dear, you don’t know how much I’ve thought about
you. It hurts me _hard_ to think that you are unhappy. I feel as
guilty as a murderer, but really I thought you’d get along. So
many women had been in love with Bev, I thought you would be,
too. I don’t think it had ever occurred to me that women
sometimes had a soul. If I had known as much then as I do now
I’d have done all I could to keep you apart, for Beverly Peele
certainly has not the attenuated ghost of a soul.
But Patience, dear, do stand it out. Don’t, _don’t_ get a
divorce. Remember that all over the world women are as miserable
as you are, and as I might be if I would let myself go. Now, at
least, you have compensations; and when I am married I’ll do
everything I can to make life gay and pleasant for you; but
don’t make a horrid vulgar newspaper scandal and leave yourself
without resources. This world is a pretty good place after all
when you are on top, but it must be hell underneath.
Lovingly HAL.
VIII
The day Mrs. Peele and her daughters sailed for France Mr. Peele and his
niece returned to the Manor. Honora kissed Patience on either cheek.
“Oh, I am so glad to come back to my lovely room, and to see you,
Patience dear,” she said wearily. “We have had such a gay winter, and I
am so tired. Dear me, how fresh and sweet you look in that white frock.
I just long to get into thin things.”
When Mr. Peele came up in the evening he narrowed his lids as he kissed
Patience, and regarded her critically. “Well, how does Beverly wear in a
three months’ _tête-à-tête_?” he asked. “Gad! I shouldn’t care to try
it.”
“Oh,” she said flushing, “we didn’t talk much. He had the farm and the
horses to attend to, you know, and I had the library. Oh, I am so glad
you have that library.”
He laughed aloud, with the harsh notes of a voice unused to such music.
“I see you have had a Paul and Virginia time, as Hal would say. I’m
sorry you’ve put your foot in it, for even you can’t make anything of
him; but make the best of it. Don’t leave him—Hal has told me
something, you see. It was best that she should. There must be no
scandal. If he makes too great a nuisance of himself come to me; and if
he cuts off your allowance at any time just let me know, and I’ll see
that you have all the money you want. He doesn’t own the farm. I like
you. You’re a clever woman. If you’d been my daughter I’d have been
proud of you.”
And whether he really found pleasure in his daughter-in-law’s society,
or whether he merely thought it politic to lighten her burden, from that
time until the return of the family he devoted his evenings to her. He
was deeply read, and Patience, after years of mental loneliness, was
grateful for his companionship, although personally he antagonised her.
He was a mentality without heart or soul, and she knew that he would
sacrifice her as readily as he accepted her if it better suited his
purpose.
She clung to Honora during the day and read aloud to her in the Tea
House, while that devoted young Catholic embroidered for the village
church or sewed for the poor of her beloved priest. Father O’Donovan, a
young man with a healthy serious face and a clear eye, frequently joined
them. Every morning the girls rode or sailed. Beverly frequently made
one of the party, and Patience and Honora exercised all their tact to
keep him in good humour. In the evening he played duets with his cousin.
Her touch was as light and hollow as an avalanche of icicles from the
roof, he pounded the piano as if it were a prize fighter’s chest.
One evening Patience did not go downstairs until a few moments before
dinner was announced. As she entered the library she saw that a stranger
stood at the window with Mr. Peele. The priest was present, and she
shook hands with him before going over to greet the stranger and her
father-in-law. While she was agreeing with him that Honora in her white
robe and blue sash looked exactly like an angel, the man at the window
turned, and she recognised Mr. Field. She ran forward and held out her
hand.
“Oh! Oh!” she cried. “I’m so glad to see you again. I’ve wanted and
wanted to.”
He took her hand, smiling, but regarded her with the keen gaze she so
well remembered.
“Bless my soul,” he said, “but you have changed. It is not too much to
say that you have improved. Even the freckles have gone, I see. I
thought I was to make a newspaper woman of you. I felt rather cross when
you married. But this life certainly agrees with you. You look quite the
_grande dame_—quite—ah! Good evening, sir,” as Beverly entered and was
presented. Mr. Field darted a glance from one to the other, his mouth
twitching sardonically.
He sat at Patience’s right during dinner, and they talked constantly.
Beverly was sulky, and said nothing. Mr. Peele rarely talked at table,
even to Patience. Honora and the priest conversed in a solemn undertone.
It is doubtful if two courses had been served before the terrible old
man understood the situation.
“There’s tragedy brewing here,” he thought, grimly. “That fellow has the
temper of a fiend in the skull of a fool, and this girl is not the
compound I take her to be if she lives a lie very long for the sake of
champagne and truffles. I’d give a good deal to foresee the outcome.
Unless I’m all wrong there’ll be a two column story on the first page of
the ‘Day’ some fine morning. Well, she’ll have its support, right or
wrong. She’s a brick, and he’s the sort of fellow a man always wants to
kick.—What is that?” he asked of the priest, who had begun a story that
suddenly appealed to Mr. Field’s editorial instinct.
“A physician over at Mount Vernon, who stands very high in his
profession, has been accused of poisoning his wife. She died in great
agony, and her mother insisted upon a post-mortem. Her stomach was full
of strychnine. He maintains that she threatened to commit suicide
repeatedly, and that he is innocent; but opinion is against him, and
people seem to think that the jury will convict him. I knew both, and I
feel positive of his innocence.”
“Undoubtedly he is innocent,” said Mr. Field. “No physician of ordinary
cleverness would bungle like that. Strychnine! absurd! Why, there are
poisons known to all physicians and chemists which absolutely defy
analysis. I don’t doubt that more than one doctor has put his wife out
of the way, and the world none the wiser.”
“Is that true?” said Patience, eagerly, leaning forward. Her curious
mind leapt at any new fact. “What are they like?”
“That I can’t say. That is a little secret known to the fraternity only,
although I don’t doubt they give their friends the benefit of their
knowledge occasionally. Indubitably a large proportion of murderers are
never discovered—unless they discover themselves, like the guilty pair
in ‘Thérèse Raquin.’”
“Oh, they belonged to the cruder order of civilisation,” said Patience,
lightly. “I am sure that if I committed a murder, I should not be
bothered by conscience if I had felt myself justified in committing it.
It seems to me that if the development of the intellect means anything
it means the casting out of inherited prejudices. Of course I don’t
believe in murder,” she continued, carried away as ever by the pleasure
of abstract reasoning, “but if a man of the world and of brains, after
due deliberation, makes way with a person who is fatal to his happiness
or his career, then I think he must have sufficient development of
mental muscle to scorn remorse. The highest intelligences are
anarchistic.”
“Undoubtedly there are those that have reached that point of
civilisation,” said Mr. Field, “but for my part, I have not. Although I
keep abreast of this extraordinary generation, my roots are planted
pretty far down in the old one. But assuredly if I did feel the
disposition to murder, and succumbed, I’d cover up my tracks.”
“Do these poisons give pain? Are they mineral or vegetable?”
As Mr. Field was about to answer, a peculiar expression crossed his
face, and Patience, following his eyes, looked at Beverly. Her husband
was staring at her with his heavy brows together, the corners of his
mouth drawn down in an ugly sneer. To her horror and disgust she felt
the blood fly to her hair. At the same time she became conscious that
Mr. Peele, the priest, and Honora were exchanging glances of surprise.
Beverly gave an abrupt unpleasant laugh, and pushing his chair violently
back, left the room. Patience glanced appealingly about, then dropped
her glance to her plate. She felt as if the floor were dissolving
beneath her feet.
IX
A week later, after a pleasant morning in the Tea House with Honora and
Father O’Donovan, she left it to go to the library. As she turned the
corner of the house she saw Beverly standing close to one of the
windows.
“What are you doing there?” she asked in surprise.
His brows were lowered and his skin looked black, as it always did when
his angry passions were risen.
“I’ve been watching you and that priest,” he said savagely, following
her as she retreated hastily out of earshot of the people in the Tea
House. “I saw you exchanging glances with him! Now I know why you want
to know so much about poisons—”
“Are you insane?” she cried. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“No, I’m not insane—by God! You’re in love with that priest, and I know
it. But I’m on the watch—”
“Oh,—you—you—” stammered Patience. She could not speak. Her face was
crimson with anger and disgust. In her husband’s eyes she was an image
of guilt. He burst into a sneering laugh.
“You think I’m a fool, I suppose, because I don’t know anything about
books. But a woman said once that I had the instincts of the devil, and
I’ve no idea of—”
Patience found her tongue. “You poor fool,” she said. “It was ridiculous
of me to pay any attention whatever to you; but I am not used to being
insulted, even by you. And remember that I am not used to any display of
imagination in you. As for _love_—” the scorn with which she uttered
the word made even him wince—“do not worry. You have made me loathe the
thing. I could not fall in love with a god. Don’t have the least fear
that I shall be unfaithful to you. I couldn’t!”
She walked away, leaving Beverly trembling and speechless. When she
reached her room she locked the doors and sobbed wildly.
“Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” she thought. “I can’t stand it
any longer. I believe I really would kill him if I stayed. I feel as if
my nature were in ruins. I hate myself! I loathe myself! I’ll leave this
very day!”
But she had said the same thing many times. Why does a woman hesitate
long before she leaves the man who has made life shocking to her?
Indolence, abhorrence of scandal, shame to confess that she has made a
failure of her life, above all, lack of private fortune and the
uncertainty of self-support. For whatever the so-called advanced woman
may preach, woman has in her the instinct of dependence on man,
transmitted through the ages, and a sexual horror of the arena. Patience
let the days slip by, hoping, as women will, that the problem would
solve itself, that Beverly Peele would die, or become indifferent, or
that she would drift naturally into some other sphere.
X
Mrs. Peele and the girls returned with the June roses; the house was
filled with guests at once. The Cuban had gone to his islands for the
summer, and May chose to wear the willow and occasionally to weep upon
Patience’s unsympathetic shoulder; but as frequently she consoled
herself with the transient flirtation. Hal, apparently, was her old gay
self. She did not mention Wynne’s name, and Patience was equally
reticent.
“I should be the last to remind any woman of what she wished to forget,”
she thought. “And love—what does it amount to anyhow? If He came I
believe I should hate him, because once I felt something like passion
for him too.”
She had looked forward with some curiosity to meeting Latimer Burr. He
also had been in Paris. He followed his lady home on the next steamer,
and immediately upon his return came to Peele Manor. Patience did not
meet him until dinner. She sat beside him, and at once became acutely
aware that he was a man of superlative physical magnetism. She
proscribed him accordingly—magnetism was a repellent force at this
stage of her development. She was rather surprised that she could feel
it again, so completely had Beverly’s evaporated.
Burr was a tall heavily built man about forty years old. He carried
himself and wore his clothes as only a New York man can. His face was
florid and well modelled, his mouth and half closed eyes sensual. But
his voice and manners were charming. He appeared to be deeply in love
with Hal, and his voice became a caress when he spoke to her. Patience
did not like his type, but she forgave him individually because he was
fond of Hal and appeared to possess brains.
She fell into conversation with him, and his manner would have led her
to believe that while she spoke neither Hal nor any other woman existed.
To this Patience gave little attention: she had met that manner before;
it was pleasant, and she missed it when lacking; but she had practised
it too often herself to feel more than its passing fascination. His
eyes, however, were more insistently eloquent than his manner, and their
eloquence was of the order that induced discomposure.
Patience at times looked very lovely, and she was at her best to-night.
Her white skin was almost transparent, and the wine had touched her
cheeks with pink. The sadness of her spirit had softened her eyes. Her
gown of peacock blue gauze fitted her round elastic figure very firmly,
and her bare throat and neck and arms were statuesque. She had by no
means the young married woman look, but she had some time since acquired
an “air,” much to Hal’s satisfaction. To all appearances she was a girl,
but her figure was womanly. Although about five feet six, and built on a
more generous plan than the average New York woman, she walked with all
their spring and lightness of foot. Her round waist looked smaller than
it was; she never laced. Lately she had discovered that she “had an
arm,” as Hal would have phrased it, and the discovery had given her such
satisfaction that she had forgotten her troubles for the hour, and sent
for a dressmaker to take the sleeves out of her evening gowns.
Mr. Burr also discovered it, and murmured his approval as caressingly as
were he addressing his prospective bride.
“The milk-white woman!” he ejaculated softly. “The milk-white woman!”
“Can’t you get any farther?” asked Patience. “If you were a poet now,
that would make a good first line for a rhapsody—to Hal, for instance.”
He laughed indulgently. “How awfully bright you are. I am afraid of
you.” But he did not look in the least afraid. “You are to be my sister,
you know. We must become friends at once.”
“And flattery is the quickest and surest way of establishing the
fraternal relation? Well, you are quite right; but just look at my hair
for a change, will you?” (She felt as if her skin must be covered with
red spots.) “Or my profile. They are also good points.”
“They are exquisite. I have rarely seen a woman so beautiful.”
“Dear! Dear! How relieved you must be to feel that you can keep your
hand in without straying too far from Peele Manor. And there is also
Honora.”
“I don’t admire Miss Mairs. She is too tall, and her nose is too long.”
“Poor dear Honora! But how well you understand women! What tact! I like
you so much better than I did before.”
He laughed again in his indulgent way. “You mustn’t guy me. It is your
fault if I pay you too many compliments. You are a very fascinating
woman.”
“You are wonderfully entertaining. What must you be when you are in
love! What do you and Hal talk about?”
“Isn’t Hal a dear little girl? I do love her. I never loved a woman so
much in my life—never proposed before. She is so bright. She keeps me
amused all the time. I always said I’d never marry a woman that didn’t
amuse me, and I’ve kept my word. It isn’t so much what she says, don’t
you know, as the way she says it. Dear little girl!”
On this subject they could agree, and Patience kept him to it as long as
possible.
After dinner Burr went with Mr. Peele into the library. Patience,
passing through the room, found them talking earnestly upon the great
question of the day,—the financial future of the country. She paused a
moment, then sat down. To her surprise she found that Burr was master of
his subject, and possessed of a gift of words which fell little short of
eloquence.
The argument lasted an hour, during which Patience sat with her elbows
on the table, her chin on her folded hands, her eager eyes glancing from
one to the other. Occasionally she smiled responsively as Burr made some
felicitous phrase. When the discussion was over, Mr. Peele left the
room. Burr arose at once and seated himself beside her.
“I never talked so well,” he said. “You inspired me;” and he took her
hand in the matter-of-fact manner she knew so well.
“You talked quite as well before you saw me—”
“I knew you were there—”
“Kindly let me have my hand. I have only two—”
“Nonsense! Let me hold your hand. I want to! I am going to—Why are
you—”
“Haven’t you Hal’s hand?”
“Oh, my God! You don’t expect me to go through life holding one woman’s
hand? Hal is the most fascinating woman in the world, and I love
her—but I want you to let me love you, too.”
“It is quite immaterial to me whether you love me or not; and, I think,
if you want plain English, that you are a scoundrel.”
“Oh, come, come. You—_you_—must know more of the world than to talk
like that. Why am I a scoundrel?” He looked much amused.
“You are engaged to one woman and are making love to another.”
“Well, what of that so long as she doesn’t know it? I shall be the most
uxorious and indulgent of husbands—but faithful—that is not to be
expected.”
“You must have great confidence in me. Suppose I describe this scene and
conversation to Hal?”
“You will not,—not out of regard for me, but because you love Hal—dear
little girl! And you are one of the few women devoid of the cat
instincts. That long-legged girl, now, has a whole tiger inside of her,
but you have only the faults of the big woman. I hope you have their
weaknesses.”
“Well, you shall never know if I have. Please let go my hand.”
He flung it from him. “Oh, well,” he said, haughtily, “I hoped we should
be friends, but if you will have it otherwise, so be it;” and he stalked
out, and devoted himself to Hal for the rest of the evening.
XI