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.