Chapter X: Book III: I (3)

“I am afraid it is. The imagination wears blunt. The Deity is sending his electricity elsewhere—to those still prowling about the shores of the unknown. Perhaps if one could keep the danger in mind—if one were unusually clever—I don’t know. I fancy civilisation will get to that point after a while. Unquestionably the companionship of man and woman, when no essentials are lacking, is the one supremely satisfying thing in life. If we loved each other, for instance—on such a night—it seems to me that we are in tune—”

“But we don’t love each other, as it happens, and we met about three quarters of an hour ago. We’ll probably hate each other by daylight.”

“Oh, I hope not,” he said, accepting the ice-water. “But tell me what your ideals were. I hope they have proved more stable than mine.”

“Oh, mine were a sort of yearning for some unseen force in nature; I suppose the large general force from which love is a projection. Every mortal, except the purely material, the Beverly Peele type, for instance, has an affinity with something in the invisible world, an uplifting of the soul. Christianity satisfies the great mass, hence its extraordinary hold. Do you suppose the real link between the soul of man and the soul of nature will ever be established?”

He laughed a little, piqued, but amused. “You are very clever,” he said, “and this is just the hour and these are just the circumstances for impersonal abstractions. Well—perhaps the link will be established when we have lived down this civilisation and entered upon another which has had drilled out of it all the elements which plant in human nature the instincts of cupidity and sordidness and envy and political corruption, and all that goes to make us the aliens from nature that we are. About all that keeps us in touch with her now are our large vices. There is some tremendous spiritual force in the Universe which projects itself into us, making man and nature correlative. What wonder that man—particularly an imaginative and intelligent child—should be affected and played upon by this Mystery? What wonder that the heathens have gods, and the civilised a symbol called the Lord God?—a concrete something which they can worship, and upon which unburden the load of spirituality which becomes oppressive to matter? It is for the same reason that women fall in love and marry earlier than men, who have so many safety-valves. On the other hand, men who have a great deal of emotional imagination and who can neither love nor accept religion take refuge in excess. It is all a matter of temperament. Cold-blooded people—those that have received a meagre share of this great vital force pervading the Universe, which throws a continent into convulsions or a human being into ecstasy—such, for instance, are religious only because their ancestors were,—their brain is pointed that way. Their blood has nothing to do with it, as is the more general case—for Christianity is pre-eminently sensuous.”

“What do you suppose will take its place? The world is bound to become wholly civilised in time; but still human nature will demand some sort of religion (which is another word for ideality), some sort of lodestar.”

“A superlative refinement, I think; a perfected æstheticism which shall by no means eradicate the strong primal impulses; which shall, in fact, create conditions of higher happiness than now exist. Do we not enjoy all arts the more as they approach perfection? Does not a nude appeal with more subtle strength to the senses the more exquisite its beauty, the more entire its freedom from coarseness? When people strive to place human nature on a level with what is highest in art and in nature itself, the true religion will have been discovered. So far, man himself is infinitely below what man has achieved. It is hard to believe that genius is the result of any possible combination of heredity. It would seem that it must, like its other part, imagination, be the direct and more permanent indwelling of the supreme creative force—as if the creator would lighten his burden occasionally, and shakes off rings which float down to torment favoured brains.”

“I always knew that I should love to hear you talk,” murmured Patience.

His hand closed over hers. He drew it through his arm and held it against his heart, which was beating irregularly.

“And I haven’t talked so much nor such stuff to a woman since God made me. I believe that I could talk to you through twenty years. You have said enough to-night to make me hope that our minds have been running along the same general lines. Tell me—honestly—no coquetry—has what I said that night had the slightest effect in your development?”

She told the tale of the day in the crystal woods, giving a sufficiently comprehensive sketch of the events which had led up to it to make her the more keenly interesting to the man whose brain was beginning to whirl a little.

“If you had come at that moment,” she concluded, “I would have gone with you to the end of the earth. I have a pretty strong personality, but there was a good deal of wax in me then, and if you could have gotten it between your hands I think that what you moulded would have closely resembled your ideal—the impression you had already made had so strongly coloured and trained my imagination. But,” she continued hastily, and glancing anxiously to the far distant end of the avenue, “you see my life changed immediately after that, and I went into the world and became hard and bitter and cynical. I have no ideals left, and I do not want any—I have seen too much—”

“Hush!” he said passionately, “I do not believe a word of it. Why, that was not two years ago, and you are still a young girl. Have you loved any one else?” he asked abruptly, his voice less steady.

“No!”

He was too excited to note the meaning of her emphasis. He was only conscious that he was very close to a beautiful woman who allured him in all ways as no one woman had ever done before.

“You are full of a girl’s cynicism,” he said; “you have seen just enough to make you think you know the world—to accept the superficial for the real. You—you yourself are an ideal. All you need is to know yourself, and I am going to undertake the task of teaching you—do you hear? If I fail—if I have made a mistake—if it is only the night and your beauty that have gone to my head—well and good; but I shall have the satisfaction of having tried—of knowing—”

“No, no! No, no!” she said. “You must not come here again. I do not want to see you again—”

“Nonsense! You have some sentimental foolish idea in your head,—or perhaps you are engaged to some man who can give you great wealth and position. I shall not regard that, either. If I feel to you by daylight as I do now, I’ll have you—do you understand?”

Patience opened her lips to tell him the truth, then cynically made up her mind to let matters take their course. At the same time she was bitterly resentful that she should feel as she did, not as she had once dreamed of feeling for this man.

“Very well,” she said, “I shall be here for a while.”

“And I shall see you in the course of a day or two. I’m going now. Good-night.” He let her arm slip from under his, but held her hand closely. “And even if it so happened that I never did see you again, I should thank you for the glimpse you have given me of a woman I hardly dared dream existed.”

When he had gone she anathematised fate for a moment, then went back to her guests.

XII

Latimer Burr was evidently a man upon whom rebuff sat lightly. The next morning he came suddenly upon Patience in a dark corner, and tried to kiss her. Whenever the opportunity offered he held her hand, and once, to her infinite disgust, he planted his foot squarely on hers under the dinner table. A few hours later they happened to be alone in one of the small reception-rooms.

“Look here,” exclaimed Patience, wrathfully, “will you let me alone?”

“No, I won’t,” he said good-naturedly. “Jove! but you are a beauty!”

She wore a gown of white mull and lace, trimmed with large knots of dark-blue velvet. She had been talking all the evening with Mr. Peele, Mr. Field, and Burr, and was somewhat excited. Her lips were very pink, her eyes very bright and dark. She held her head with a young triumph in beauty and the intellectual tribute of clever men.

“Hal would be delighted. She has always wanted me to become the fashion.”

“You never will be that, for there are not enough brainy men in society to appreciate you. If all were like myself, you would be wearied with the din of admiration—”

“There’s nothing like having a good opinion of oneself.”

“Why not? I don’t set up to be an intellectual man—intellectual men are out of date; but I’m a brainy man, and I’d like to know how I’m to help being aware of the fact. I certainly don’t claim to be pretty, so you can’t say I’m actually wallowing in conceit.”

Patience was forced to laugh. “Oh, you’d do very well if you’d exercise as much sense in regard to women as you do to affairs. Just answer me one question, will you? Are you so amazingly fascinating that women have the habit of succumbing at the end of the second interview?”

“I never set up to be an ass.”

“But your manner is quite assured. You seem very much surprised that I don’t tumble into your arms and say ‘Thank you.’ Oh, you New York men are so funny!”

“Well, answer me one question—you don’t love your husband, do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Do you like me?”

“I would if you wouldn’t make such an idiot of yourself. You certainly are very agreeable to talk to.”

He came closer, his lids falling. The fine repose of his manner was a trifle ruffled. “Do you love anybody else?” he asked.

“I do not.”

“Then let me love you.”

“I shall not.”

“Then if you don’t love your husband and you like me and will not let me love you, you must have a lover.”

Patience burst into brief hilarity.

“Is that the logic of your kind?”

“A beautiful woman that does not love her husband always loves another man.”

“Or is willing to be loved by the first man that happens to have no other affair on hand.”

“You have said that you like me.”

“I didn’t say I loved you!”

“I’d make you!”

“Oh!” with a deep contempt he was incapable of understanding, “you couldn’t. But tell me another thing; I’m very curious. Has it never occurred to you that a woman must be wooed, that it is somewhat necessary to arouse sentiment and feeling in her before she is willing to advance one step? Why, you and your kind demand her off-hand in a way that is positively funny. What has become of all the old traditions?”

“Oh, bother,” he said. “Life is too short to waste time on old-fashioned nonsense. If a man wants a woman he says so, and if she’s sensible and likes him she meets him half way. Men and women of the world know what they want.”

“That is all there is to love then? It no longer means anything else whatever?”

“Oh—you are all wrong. If you were not a spiritual woman I wouldn’t cross the room to win you. One can buy the other sort. It is your spirituality, your intellectuality, that fascinates me as much as your beauty.”

“What do you know about spirituality?” she said contemptuously. “I don’t like to hear you speak the word. You desecrate it.”

He flushed purple. “There are few things I don’t understand—and a good deal better than you do, perhaps.”

“You have a clever man’s perception, that is all. Association with all sorts of women has taught you the difference between them. But what could you give a spiritual woman? Nothing. You have not a shrunken kernel of soul. The sensual envelope is too thick; your brain too crowded with the thousand and one petty experiences of material life. You are as ingenuous as all fast men, for the women you have spent your life running after make no demands upon subtlety—”

“Take care,” he said angrily; “you are going too far. I tell you I have as much soul as any man living.”

“Perhaps. I doubt if any man has much. Men give women nothing, as far as I can see. If we want companionship there seems nothing to do but to descend to your level and grovel with you.”

“I would never make you grovel. I would reverence—”

“Oh, rot!” she cried, stamping her foot. “What a fool—and worse—the average woman must be. You have no idea how ingenuously you are giving away the women of society. And soul! The idea of a man who pretends to love the woman he is engaged to and is making love to another, and that her sister-in-law and most intimate friend, claiming to have a soul! Have you no sense of humour? I say nothing about honour, as I wish to be understood, if possible; but you are clever enough to see the ridiculous in most things—Please don’t walk over me. There is plenty of room. And the windows are open, you know—”

“Yes, and I am here,” cried a furious voice, and Beverly sprang into the room.

Patience stepped back with a faint exclamation. Burr turned white. Beverly was shaking with rage. His face was almost black; there were white flecks on his nostrils.

“I kept quiet,” he articulated, “to hear every word. You dog!” to Burr. “I may be pretty bad, but I’d never do what you have done. And as for you,” he shook his fist at his wife, “you were only leading him on. If I could only have held myself in another moment I’d have seen you in his arms. Get out of this house,” he roared, “both of you. You’ll never marry my sister. I’m going to tell her this minute—”

Burr sprang forward and caught him by the collar; but Beverly was not a coward. He turned, flinging out his fist, and the two men grappled. Patience closed the door and glanced out of the window. No one was near. Voices floated up from the cliffs. Burr was the more powerful man of the two, and in a moment had flung Beverly, panting, into a chair.

“Keep him here,” said Patience, rapidly, and she left the room.

“Man is certainly still a savage, a brute,” she thought. “What is the matter with civilisation?”

As she crossed the lawn, she met one of the servants.

“Go and find Miss Hal, and ask her to come here,” she said. A few moments later her sister-in-law hurried up from the cliffs.

“What is it?” she called cheerily. “Has Bev had an apoplectic fit?”

“Beverly has been making a greater fool of himself than usual,” said Patience, as the girls met, “and I want to see you before he does. I was standing in one of the reception-rooms talking to Mr. Burr after Mr. Field and Mr. Peele had gone out, and he had on all his manner and was telling me how beautiful I was, in his usual after dinner style, when Beverly leaped through the window like the wronged husband in the melodrama and accused us of making love. He threatened to come and tell you, and he and Mr. Burr wrestled like two prize-fighters. If Beverly were put on the witness stand he’d be obliged to admit that Mr. Burr had not so much as touched my hand. I suppose you will believe me?”

Hal gave her light laugh. “Certainly, my dear, certainly; although if I were a man I should fall in love with you myself. I wouldn’t bet on Latimer, but I would on you—so don’t worry your little head. Do you suppose I expect a man with that mouth and those eyes to be faithful to me? Still, I must say that I should have given him credit for more decency than to make love to my sister-in-law—”

“He didn’t! I swear he didn’t.”

“Oh, of course not! Nor will he make love to every pretty woman he finds himself alone with for five minutes. He can’t help it, poor thing. Let us go and talk to the gentlemen.”

As they entered the little room she exclaimed airily, “Been making a fool of yourself again, Bev? No, don’t speak. Patience has told me all about it. I have every confidence in her and Latimer. Better go and take a spin with Tammany. Latimer, you really must mend your manners. They’re too good. From a distance a stranger would really think you were making love when you are swearing at the heat. Now, come down to the Tea House. Good-night, Bevvy dear.”

And she went off between her lover and her sister-in-law, leaving her brother to swear forth his righteous indignation.

That night Patience opened the door of her husband’s room for the first time. Beverly, who had just entered, was so astonished that the wrath he had carefully nourished fell like quicksilver under a cool wave, and he stared at her without speaking.

“I wish to tell you,” said his wife, “that you were entirely justified in being angry to-night. I could have suppressed Burr by a word, but I chose to lead him on to gratify my curiosity. Hal wishes to marry him, and I am determined that she shall. If I had admitted the truth to her or permitted you to enlighten her, her self-respect would have forced her to break the engagement. That would have been absurd, for the match is exactly what she wants, and she is not marrying with illusions. But you have been treated inconsiderately, and I apologise for my share in it. Will you forgive me?”

“Of course I’ll forgive you,” said Beverly, eagerly. “I wasn’t angry with you, anyhow—only with that scoundrel. But I never believed you’d do this. Do you care for me a little?”

Patience averted her face that she might not see the expression on his. Despite her loathing of him she gave him a certain measure of pity. With all the preponderance of the savage in him and the limitations of his intelligence he had his own capacity for suffering, and to-night he stood before her crushed under the sudden reaction, his eyes full of the dumb appeal of shrinking brutes.

“If we are going to live peacefully don’t let us discuss that subject,” she said gently. “We have both missed it, and I sometimes think that you are more to be pitied than I am. However, I shall not flirt—I promise you that. Good-night.”

That was the last of Mr. Burr’s illegal love-making at Peele Manor. He had had a fright and a lesson, and he forgot neither.

XIII

“Garan Bourke is coming to dinner to-night,” said Hal, the next day. “It’s the hardest thing in the world to get him; he never goes anywhere; but he half promised mamma, when he called the other night, that he’d come some day this week, and he wrote yesterday, saying he’d dine with us to-day. I want you to meet him. He is awfully clever, and when he talks I want to close my eyes and listen to his voice. If the dear girls ever get the vote and do jury duty, all he’ll have to do will be to quote law. He needn’t take the trouble to sum up. His voice will do the business every time.”

Patience, in a French gown of black chiffon, was very beautiful that night. She did not go down to dinner until every one was seated. Bourke sat next to Mrs. Peele. Her own chair was near the end of the opposite side of the long table. For a time she did not look at Bourke. When she did she met his eyes; and knew by their expression that some one had told him she was the wife of Beverly Peele.

After dinner he went with Mr. Peele and Burr into the library. Patience was about to follow a party of young people down to the bluff, when Mr. Field drew her arm firmly through his.

“You are not going to desert your court?” he said. “Why, you don’t suppose I come up here to talk to Peele, do you? If you go out with those boys I’ll never come here again.” And he led her into the library.

It was nearly twelve o’clock when she found herself alone with Bourke. The others had gone out, one by one. She had made no attempt to follow them. She sat with defiant eyes and inward trepidation. Bourke regarded her with narrowed eyes and twitching nostrils.

“So you are married?” he said at last.

“Yes.”

“And you deliberately made a fool of me?”

“No—no—I did nothing deliberately that night—no—I acted on impulse. And all that I said was quite true. Of course I should have told you—”

“But it would have spoiled your comedy.”

“No—no—don’t think that. I see that I was dishonest—I am not making excuses—I never thought you’d become really interested—”

“I am not breaking my heart. Don’t let that worry you. The mere fact of your dishonesty is quite enough to break the spell—for you are not the woman I imagined you to be. I was merely worshipping an ideal for the hour. Do you love your husband?”

“No.”

“Then you are a harlot,” he said, deliberately. “It only needed that.” He rose to his feet and looked contemptuously at her scarlet face. “At all events it was an amusing episode,” he said. “Good-night.”

XIV

It was a matter of comment before the summer was over, both among the guests at Peele Manor and the neighbours, that Mr. and Mrs. Beverly Peele had come to the parting of the ways. As the young man’s infatuation was as notable as his wife’s indifference, he received the larger share of sympathy. The married men championed Patience and expressed it in their time-honoured fashion; and although they worried her she looked forward with terror to the winter: she would willingly have taken them all to board and trusted to their wives to keep them in order.

Beverly had confided his woes long since to his mother. She declined to discuss the subject with her daughter-in-law, but treated her with a chill severity. Fortunately they were gay that summer, and Patience had much to do. Hal and May were absorbed in preparations for their wedding, and the duties of hostess fell largely on her shoulders.

Late in the fall there was a double wedding under the medallion of Peele the First. Immediately thereafter May went to Cuba; and Hal to Europe, to pay a series of visits. Mrs. Peele continued to entertain, and was obliged to confess that her daughter-in-law was very useful, and in deportment above reproach. Outwardly Patience looked almost as cold a woman of the world as herself, and gave no evidence of the storms brewing within; but one day she hung out a signal. Mrs. Peele announced that she should go to town on the first of December. Patience followed her into her bedroom and closed the door.

“May I speak to you a moment alone?” she asked.

“Certainly,” said Mrs. Peele, frigidly. “Will you sit down?”

She herself took an upright chair, and suggested, Patience thought, a judge on his bench.

“I want to go to town with you this winter.”

“I should be happy to have my dear son with me, and I will not deny that you are a great help to me; but Beverly is as strongly opposed as ever to city life. I asked him myself to go down for the winter, but he refused. He is one of Nature’s own children, and loves the country.”

“He certainly is very close to Nature in several of her moods. But I wish to go whether he does or not.”

“You would leave your husband?” Mrs. Peele spoke with meditative scorn.

“It will be better for both of us not to be shut up here together for another winter. I—I will not answer for the consequences.”

“Is that a threat?”

“You can take it as you choose.”

“Do you not love my son?”

“No, I do not.”

“And you are not ashamed to make such an admission?”

“Would you prefer to have me lie about it?”

“It is your duty to love your husband.”

“That proposition is rather too absurd for argument, don’t you think so? Will you persuade Beverly to let me go with you to town?”

“I shall not. You should be glad, overjoyed, to have such a husband. You should feel grateful,” she added, unburdening her spite in the vulgarity which streaks high and low, “that he loved you well enough to overlook your lack of family and fortune—”

But Patience had left the room.

That evening she went to her father-in-law and stated her case. She spoke calmly, although she was bitter and sore and worried. “I cannot stay here with Beverly this winter,” she continued. “I need not explain any farther. Mrs. Peele will not consent to my going to town with her. But couldn’t I live abroad? I could do so on very little. I should care nothing for society if I could live my life by myself. I should be quite contented with books and freedom. But I cannot stay here with Beverly alone again.”

Mr. Peele shook his head. “It wouldn’t do. I understand; but it would only result in scandal, and I don’t like scandal. We have never gone to pieces, like so many great New York families. Our women have been proud and conservative, and have not used their position to cloak their amours. I have perfect confidence in you, of course; but if you went to Europe and left Beverly raging here, people would say that you had gone to meet another man. Moreover, it would do no good. Beverly would follow you. And he will give you no cause for divorce: he has the cunning peculiar to the person of ugly disposition and limited mentality. No, try to stand it. Remember that all the humours of human nature have their limit. Beverly will become indifferent in time. Then he will let you come to us. I intend to take a rest in a year or two and go abroad, and I shall be glad to have you with us. I do not mind telling you that you are the brightest young woman I have ever known—and Mr. Field has said the same thing.”

But Patience was not in a mood to bend her neck to flattery. She shook her head gloomily.

“If I have any brain, cannot you see that I suffer the more? Mr. Peele, I cannot stay here with Beverly! Do you know that sometimes I have felt that I could kill him? I am afraid of myself.”

“Hush! Hush! Don’t say such things. You excitable young women are altogether too extravagant in your way of expressing yourselves. Words carry a great deal farther than you have any idea of—take an old lawyer’s word for it. Now try to stand it. In fact, you must stand it. I’ll do all I can. I’ll leave a standing order with Brentano to send you all the new books, and I’ll insist upon your coming up every week or so to have some amusement. But for God’s sake make no scandal.”

XV

On the first of December Patience and Beverly were alone once more. The weather was fine, and Beverly temporarily absorbed in breaking in a colt on his private track. Patience spent the first day wandering about the woods, tormented by her thoughts. She remembered with passionate regret the old crystal woods where she had been a girl of dreams and ideals. Her ideals were in ruins. The hero of her dreams had told her a hideous truth that had made her hate him and more abundantly despise herself. She longed ardently to get away to a mountain top, a hundred miles from civilisation. Nature had been her friend in the old Californian days, and the green or white beauty of her second environment had satisfied her in that peaceful intermediate time. But Westchester County, although exquisitely pretty, lacked grandeur and the suggestion of colossal throes in remote ages with which every stone in California is eloquent. That was what she wanted now. But there was no prospect of getting away. Did she have enthusiasm enough left to leave summarily she had little money. She was very extravagant, and left the larger part of her quarterly allowance with New York shops and milliners and dressmakers; but she knew that the end was approaching, and listlessly awaited it.

Heavy with rebellious disgust she returned to the house and went mechanically to the library. For a while she did not read; she felt no impulse to do so. But after a time she took down a book in desperation, a volume of a new edition de luxe of “Childe Harold.” She had not read it during her brief Byronic fever, and had not opened the poet since. Gradually she forgot self. She began with the third canto, and when she had finished the fourth she discovered that her spirits were lighter, a weight had risen from her brain. She had always regarded “notes” as an evidence of the amateur reader, but to-day she scrawled on a fly-leaf of Mr. Peele’s new morocco edition:—

“As the Christian goes to his God for help, the intellectual, in
hours of depression and disgust and doubt go to the great
Creators of Literature, those master minds that lift our own
temporarily above the terrible enigma of the commonplace, and
possess us to the extinction of personal meditation. Are not
these genii as worthy of deification by the higher civilisation
as was Jesus Christ—their brother—by the great illogical
suffering mass of mankind? ‘Faith shall make ye whole,’ said
Christ; ‘come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden.’ ‘Develop
your brain, and I will give you self-oblivion, philosophy, and a
soul of many windows,’ say the great masters of thought and
style, the stupendous creative imaginations.”

Beverly came home in high good humour; his colt had showed his blood, and nearly pulled him out of the break-cart. Patience endeavoured to appear interested, and he was so pleased that the atmosphere during dinner was quite domestic. Afterward he went to sleep on a sofa by the library fire, and his wife read.

A week passed more placidly than Patience had expected. Beverly was evidently under stress to make himself agreeable. His wife suspected that he had had a long and meaning conference with his father. In truth he was desperately afraid that she would leave him. Patience did not know whether she hated him most when he was amiable or violent; but she hated herself more than she hated him.

“I think I’ll go to town and see Rosita,” she thought one morning as she awakened. “It seems to me that she is the fittest companion I could find.”

At the breakfast-table she appeared in a tailor frock and turban, and informed Beverly that she was going to town to pay some visits. Beverly looked at her for a moment with black face, then dropped his eyes without comment. He recalled his father’s advice.

“What train shall you come home in?” he asked after a moment. “I’ll go down to the station to meet you.”

“I cannot say. I shall be back to dinner.”

“Aren’t you going to kiss me good-bye?” he asked sullenly, when she was about to open the front door. She hesitated a moment, then raised her face, closing her eyes, lest he should see the impulse to strike him. He saw the hesitation and turned away with an oath, then ran after her, flung his arms about her and kissed her. She walked down to the station with burning face, rubbing her mouth and cheeks violently, careless of the wide-eyed regard of two gardeners.

XVI

When she arrived at Rosita’s the maid admitted her without protest, not recognising in this elegant young woman the countrified girl of two years before. She left Patience in the dark drawing-room, but returned in a moment and announced that Madame would see Mrs. Peele at once. Patience followed the woman through the boudoir and bedroom to the bath-room, a classic apartment of pink tiles. The tub was merely one corner of the room walled off with tiles; and in it, covered from throat to foot with a sheet, her head on a silken strap, lay Rosita. By her side sat a girl in a fashionable ulster and large hat, a note-book and pencil on her lap. Rosita looked like a dark-haired Aphrodite, and was as fresh as a rose. A maid had just dried one pink and white hand, and she held it out to Patience.

“Patita! Patita! Patita!” she said with her sweet drawl and accent, and without a trace of resentment in her soft heavy eyes. “Where, where have you been all these years? Miss Merrien, this is my oldest and dearest friend, Mrs. Beverly Peele [she pronounced the name with visible pride]. Patita, this is Miss Merrien of the ‘Day.’ She is interviewing me.”

Patience flushed as she bent her head to the young woman, who regarded her with conspicuous amazement, and whose nostrils quivered a little, as if she scented a “story.” She was a pretty girl with a dark rather worn face, a frank eye, and a nervous manner.

“Patita, sit down there just for a moment while I look at you. Then we will go into the other room. I could not wait to see you. _Dios de mi alma_, but you have changed, Patita _mia_. Who would ever have thought that you would be such a beauty and such a swell. Gray cloth and chinchilla! Just think, Miss Merrien, we used to wear sunbonnets and copper-toed boots, and drove an old blind horse that would not go off a walk.”

“May I put that down?” asked the girl, eagerly.

“Oh, please don’t,” exclaimed Patience. Miss Merrien’s face fell. Then she smiled, and said good-naturedly, “All right, I won’t.”

“And now Patita is a swell,” pursued Rosita, as if no interruption had occurred, “and I am a famous _prima donna_. Such is life. Patita, do you know that I have two hundred thousand dollars invested?”

“Really?”

“_Si, señorita!_ Oh, my price has gone up, Patita _mia_,” and she laughed her low delicious laugh.

Miss Merrien smiled. “A man shot himself for that laugh the other day—I suppose you read about it,” she said.

“No, I did not. I have read the newspapers irregularly of late—the ‘stories,’ at least.”

“It is true,” said Rosita, complacently. “Oh, Patita, life is so lovely. To think that we both had such great destinies! _Pobre_ Manuela, and Panchita, and all the rest! _Bueno_, go into the bedroom, both of you, and I will be there in ten minutes.”

Patience and Miss Merrien seated themselves in the white bower of velvet and lace.

“Please do not put me into your story,” said Patience, hastily. “It would not do—you see my husband would not like it—but we are old friends, and I wanted to see her.”

Miss Merrien nodded intelligently. With the suspicion of her craft she leaped to the conclusion that the fashionable young woman came to her disreputable friend for an occasional lark.

“Oh, I promise you. If you hadn’t asked me I should though. It would make a fine story.”

“Tell me,” said Patience abruptly, “do you like being a newspaper woman? Is it very hard work?”

“Yes, it’s hard work,” Miss Merrien answered in some surprise; “but then it is the most fascinating, I do believe, in the whole world. I have a family and a home out West, and I could go back and be comfortable if I wanted to; but I wouldn’t give up this life, with all its grind and uncertainty, for that dead and alive existence. I only go out there once a year to rest. I came on here for an experiment, to see a little of the world. I had a dreadful time catching on; once I thought I’d starve, for I was bound I wouldn’t write home for money; but I hung on and got there. And I’m here to stay.”

“Oh, is it really so pleasant? Sometimes I wish I were a newspaper woman.”

“You? You? I never saw anybody that looked less like one.”

“I am very strong. I am naturally pale, that is all.”

“Oh, your skin is lovely: it’s that warm dead white. I wasn’t thinking of that. But you look like the princess that felt the pea under sixteen mattresses.”

“One adapts one’s self easily to luxury. I have only had it two years. I do like it certainly. Nevertheless, I’d like to be a newspaper woman. You look tired; are you?”

“Yes, I am, Mrs. Peele. It’s hard work, if it is fascinating; for instance, I’ve chased about this entire week for stories that haven’t panned out for a cent. I haven’t made ten dollars. I came up here as a last resource. La Rosita is always good-natured, and I hoped she’d have a story for me. But all I’ve got is a crank that’s following her about threatening to kill her if she doesn’t marry him, and that’s such a chestnut. If I could only fake something I know she’d let it go, but my imagination’s worn to a thread—”

The portière was pushed aside, and Rosita entered. She wore a glistening night-robe of silk and lace and ribbon under a yellow plush bath gown. Her dense black hair fell to her knees. She slid into bed and ordered her maid to admit the manicure. An old woman, looking like a witch and clad in shabby black, came in and took a chair beside the bed. The maid brought a crystal bowl and warm water, and a golden manicure set, and Rosita held forth her incomparable arm with its little Spanish hand. She lay with indolent grace among the large pillows.

“You certainly are a beauty,” exclaimed Miss Merrien, enthusiastically.

Rosita smiled with much pleasure. “I love to hear a woman say that, and I shall make good copy for many years yet. I shall not fade like most Spanish women. Oh, I have learned many secrets.”

“I wish you hadn’t told them to me, and then I should still have them to write about. They made a great story.”

“_Dios! Dios!_” said Rosita, plaintively, “I wish we could think of something. I hate to send you away with nothing at all. I love to be written about. Patita, can’t you think of something?”

“Now, Mrs. Peele,” said Miss Merrien, “let us see if you are a good fakir. That is one of the first essentials of being a successful newspaper woman.”

“Oh, dear! Is it? If I could fake I’d make books. I’d like that even better. Rosita, did you ever tell the newspapers about that time I coached you for your first appearance on any stage, and the great hit you made?”

“What is that?” asked Miss Merrien, sharply.

“I never thought of it. Patita, you tell the story.”

This Patience did, while Miss Merrien wrote rapidly in shorthand, pausing occasionally to exclaim with rapture.

“Oh, my good angel sent me here this morning,” she said when Patience had finished. “I won’t mention your name, of course, but you won’t mind my saying that you are one of the Four Hundred.”

“I don’t suppose there is any objection. I am such an obscure member of it that no one will suspect me. Only don’t give any details.”

“Oh, I won’t, indeed I won’t.” She slipped her book into her muff and rose to go. “You don’t know how much obliged I am. I’ll do as much for you some day. If ever you want to be written up, let me know.”

“I never should want to be in the newspapers.”

“Oh, there’s no telling. You haven’t had a taste of it yet. Well, good-morning,” and she went out.

Patience leaned back in her luxurious chair, and watched the old woman polish the pretty nails. Rosita babbled, and Patience watched her face closely. Its colouring was as fresh, its contours as perfect as ever, but there was a faint touch of hardness somewhere, and the eyes held more secrets than they had two years ago. They were the eyes of the wanton. For a moment Patience forgot her surroundings. Her mind flew back to the old days, to the rickety buggy with the two contented innocent little girls, then, by a natural deflection, to her tower and her dreams. She longed passionately for the old Mission, and wondered if Solomon were still alive. Then she thought of Bourke, and came back to the present with a shudder. The woman had gone.

“What is the matter?” asked Rosita. “Is it true—what the men say—that you are not happy with your husband?”

“I hate him,” said Patience.

“Why don’t you get a divorce?”

“I have no grounds.”

“No grounds? Fancy a wife having no grounds!”

“I have not the slightest doubt of his faith.”

“Send him to me.”

“Oh, Rosita! How can you be so coarse?”

“No-o-o-o! You are my old friend. I would do anything for you. Think it over, Patita _mia_.”

“I do not need to think it over. I would never do so vile a thing as that. Have you no refinement left?”

“What earthly use would I have for refinement? Patita, you are such a baby, and you always had ideals and things. Have you got them yet?”

“No,” said Patience, rising abruptly. “I haven’t. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Patita dear,” said Rosita, with unruffled good humour, “and if ever you are in trouble come here and I will take you in. I would even lend you money, and if you knew me you would know how much I loved you to do that. There is not another person living I would give a five cent piece to.”

* * * * *

When Patience reached the sidewalk she filled her lungs with fresh air, then looked at her watch. It was only a half after twelve, and she decided to call on Mary Gallatin. She had never yet paid that charming young fashionette the promised morning call, although she had attended one or two of her afternoon receptions.

She told the coachman to drive to the house in Fifty-seventh Street, then threw herself back on the seat and laughed, a long unpleasant laugh. She tapped first one foot and then the other, with increasing nervousness.

“What fools we mortals be to cry for the unattainable,” she said, addressing the little mirror opposite. “Probably that young newspaper woman envies me bitterly. So, doubtless, do many others. Why on earth am I longing for what I’ll never find, instead of making the best of a bad bargain and the most of my position? I think I’ll find my way out of the difficulty with the average woman’s solution: I’ll take a lover.”

The carriage stopped before a house with the breadth of stoop which in New York means plentiful wealth. She waited in the drawing-room while the cautious butler went up to see if his mistress would receive this stranger. He returned in a moment and conducted her up to a door at the front of the house. Patience entered a large room whose light was so subdued that for a moment she could see only vaguely outlined forms.

“Oh, Mrs. Beverly, how dear of you,” cried a sweet voice, and Patience groped her way round the angle of a large bed and saw Mrs. Gallatin sitting against a mass of pillows. “I’m so glad you came this morning. I’m feeling so blue. I’ve twisted my foot, you know, and my friends are so kind to me. Mr. Rutger, give Mrs. Peele a chair. Mrs. Beverly, you know Mr. Rutger and Mr. Maitland and Mr. Owen, do you not? There is Leontine.”

The three young men, who had risen as she entered, bowed and resumed their seats. Mrs. Lafarge threw her a kiss from the depths of a chair by the fire.

Patience sat down and glanced about her while Mrs. Lafarge finished an anecdote she had been telling. Her eyes became accustomed to the light, and in a moment she saw things quite distinctly. The large room was furnished in Empire style, the walls and windows and the great mahogany and brass bedstead covered with crimson satin damask. There were only a few pieces of heavy furniture, in the room, but like the bed they were magnificent. Each brass carving told a different story.

Mrs. Gallatin, smiling, exquisite, wore a cambric gown, less elaborate than Rosita’s but more dainty. Her shining hair was drawn modishly to the top of her head and confined with a pink porcelain comb, carved into semblance of wild roses. A pink silk shawl slipped from her shoulders. Another wild rose was at her throat. On her hands she wore rubies only.

The story Mrs. Lafarge told was slightly naughty, and all laughed heartily at its conclusion. Patience had heard too many naughty stories in the last two years to be shocked; but when one of the young men began another he was promptly hissed down.

“You are not going to tell that before Mrs. Beverly,” said Mary Gallatin. “She is quite too frightfully proper. But we’re awfully fond of her all the same,” and she patted Patience’s hand while her lovely young face contracted in a charming scowl. Patience wondered if she had a lover—Mr. Gallatin was a dapper little man—and if that was why she looked so happy. She glanced speculatively at the men, and wondered if she could fall in love with one of them. But they were very ordinary New York youths of fashion, high of shoulder, slow of speech, large of epiglottis, vacuous of expression. She shook her head unconsciously.

“Why, what on earth are you thinking about?” cried Mrs. Gallatin, with her silvery laugh. “That wasn’t a shake of disapproval, was it?”

“Oh, no, no!” said Patience, hastily. “Something occurred to me, and I forgot I was not alone. You see, I am so much alone that I’ve even gotten into the habit of thinking out loud.” She felt that she was a restraint—the suppressed young man had relapsed into moody silence—and, as soon as she reasonably could, rose to go. Mrs. Gallatin kissed her warmly and Mrs. Lafarge came forward and kissed her also; but Patience detected a faint note of relief in their voices, and went downstairs feeling more depressed than ever. “There seems to be no place for me,” she thought. “I must be out of tune with everything.”

She went to her father-in-law’s house in Eleventh Street and found Mrs. Peele and Honora gowned for expected luncheon guests. The former apologised coldly for not being able to ask her to join them, but “there was only room in the dining-room for eight.” Honora rippled regret, and Patience felt that she should disgrace herself with tears if she did not get out of the house. She went directly to the station, intending to return home, but as the train approached Peele Manor she turned her back squarely on the old house and decided to go on to Mariaville and see Miss Beale. She remembered with satisfaction that she knew at least one wholesome thoroughly sincere woman, however misguided.

When she reached the station she concluded to walk to the house. She felt nervous and excited. Her cheeks burned and her temples ached a little. She had taken no nourishment that day but a cup of coffee and a roll, and her head felt light. It was now two o’clock.

When she had gone a little more than half way she lifted her eyes and saw Miss Beale coming toward her with beaming face, one hand ready to wave.

“Why, Patience!” she cried, as they met. “I’m so glad to see you. I’m just going to kiss you if it is on the street. I can’t say I thought you’d forgotten me, for you’ve sent me money for my poor every time I begged for it; but I did think you’d never come to see me.”

* * * * *

Patience had no excuse to offer, so wisely attempted none, but returned Miss Beale’s embrace heartily. The older woman’s face was brilliant with pleasure.

“Dear me, how pretty you have grown! What a colour! I’m so glad to see you looking so well. How happy dear Miss Tremont would be to see you now. She was always afraid you would be delicate. But we can’t wish her back, can we, Patience?”

“There’s no use wishing anything undone. Where are you going?”

“Where I am going to take you. Now, don’t ask any questions, but just come along.”

Patience, hoping that the destination was a fair where she could get luncheon, followed submissively, and evaded Miss Beale’s personal inquiries as best she could.

“How does the Temperance Cause get on?” she asked at length.

“Oh, just the same! Just the same!” said Miss Beale, with a cheerful sigh. “One makes slow progress in this wicked world; all we can do is to trust in the Lord and do our humble best. Mariaville has three new saloons, and the father of one of my scholars beat him nearly to death the other day for coming to the Loyal Legion class; but we’ll win in the end.”

“Meanwhile are you as much interested as ever?” asked Patience, curiously.

“Oh, my!” Miss Beale gave an almost hilarious laugh. “Well, I should think so. How could I ever lose interest in the Lord’s work? Why, I never even get discouraged.”

“It has occurred to me, sometimes—since I have been away and met all sorts of people—that if you really were Temperance you might have more chance of success.”

“If we were what?”

“Temperance in the actual meaning of the word. You’re not, you know; you’re teetotalists. That is the reason you antagonise so many thousands of men who might be glad to help you with their vote otherwise. The average gentleman—and there are thousands upon thousands of him—never gets drunk, and enjoys his wine at dinner and even his whiskey and water. He doesn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t have it, and there isn’t any. It adds to the pleasures of life. Those are the people that really represent Temperance, and naturally they have no sympathy with a movement that they consider narrow-minded and an unwarrantable intrusion.”

Miss Beale shook her head vigorously. “It is a sin to touch it!” she exclaimed, “and sooner or later they will all be drunkards, every one of them. The blessing of God is not on alcohol, and it should be banished from the face of the earth.”

Patience was in a perverse and almost ugly mood. “Tell me,” she said, “how do you reconcile your animosity to alcohol with the story of Christ’s turning the water into wine at the wedding feast?”

“It wasn’t wine,” said Miss Beale, triumphantly; “it was grape juice. Wine takes days to ferment, so the water couldn’t possibly have become wine all in a minute.”

Patience burst into laughter. “But, Miss Beale, it was a miracle anyhow, wasn’t it? If he could perform a miracle at all it would have been as easy to make wine out of water as grape juice.”

Miss Beale shook her head emphatically and set her lips. “I _know_ that the Lord never would have offered wine to anybody; but grape juice is delightful, and he probably knew it, and they called it wine. That is all there is to it.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Patience, forgetting the Temperance question, as Miss Beale turned into a path and walked toward the side entrance of the First Presbyterian Church, “are we going here?”

“Yes, this is just where we are going. There is a special meeting of the Y’s and Christian Endeavourers of Mariaville and White Plains and two or three other places. Ah! I’ve caught you now, you naughty girl.”

Patience turned away her face and frowned heavily. All her old dislike of religion, almost forgotten during the past two years, surged up above the impulsion of her fermenting spirit. She felt the old impatience, the old intolerance.

“Do you want me to go in there?” she asked. “I came to see you.”

“Oh, you’re not going to get out of it,” cried Miss Beale, gayly. “And I know you better than you know yourself. I know you always wanted to give yourself to the Lord, only you are too proud.”

Patience stared at her, wondering if she had so far forgotten herself as to indulge in a little joke at the expense of her idols; but Miss Beale was looking at her with kind, earnest eyes. Patience laughed, and shrugged her shoulders.