“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.”