Patience was writing busily in her little bedroom. The March winds were howling down the street. Her door opened, and a very elegant young woman entered.

“Hal!” cried Patience.

“You dear bad girl!”

They kissed a half dozen times, then sat down and looked at each other. Hal had quite the young married woman air, and held herself with a mien of conscious importance, entirely removed from conceit: she was grande dame, and the late object of attentions from smart folks abroad.

“Well, how are you?” asked Patience. “Oh, but I am glad to see you. Tell me all about yourself. When did you get back?”

“Day before yesterday. I’ve returned with thirty-two trunks, the loveliest jewels you ever saw, and quite a slave of a husband. I must say I never thought Latimer would keep up such a prolonged bluff, but he fills the rÔle as if he’d been husbanding all his life. Oh, no. Don’t look at me like that. I’ve forgotten it, and I’ve no regrets. Mon Dieu! To think that I might be in Boston on four hundred a month! I shall be a leader, my dear. You can do as much with a hundred and fifty thousand a year as you can with a million, for you can only spend just so much money anyhow. All that the big millionaires get out of their wealth is notoriety. Nobody’d remember about them if it wasn’t for the newspapers. But you bad bad girl! What have you been and gone and done? Why didn’t you wait for me? I would have rescued you.”

“Oh, you couldn’t, Hal dear. I didn’t want to be rescued for a day or a month. I’ve run away for good and all.”

“But, Patience, what an alternative! Do you mean to say you live in this cubby-hole?”

“I’m mighty happy in this cubby-hole, I can tell you; happier than I ever was at Peele Manor.”

“That certainly was the mistake of my life. However, you’ve solved the problem more promptly than most women do. The celerity with which you untied that knot when you set about it moved me to admiration. By the way, do you know that Bev is ill?”

“Is he? What is the matter?”

“I don’t know exactly,—one of those organic afflictions that men are always getting. How uninteresting men are when their interior decorations get out of gear. And they always will talk about them. Latimer is ever groaning with his liver; but no wonder. I’ve had to eat so much rich stuff to keep him from feeling lonesome that I’ve actually grown fat. Well, we don’t know what is the matter with Bev, yet. The doctor says it’s a result of the influenza. He has some pain, and makes an awful fuss, like all men.”

“Where are you going to stay, now?”

“I am at the Holland, but will spend the summer at the Manor and the fall at Newport. Our house on the Avenue—opposite the park, you know—will be finished by winter. That house will be a jewel. I got the most beautiful things abroad for it. Then you will come and live with me.”

Patience shook her head.

“It wouldn’t do, and you will see it. I belong to another sphere now; but I can see you sometimes.”

“Well, put up that stuff, and come to the Holland and dine with me. You can finish up to-night. I have yards and yards to talk to you about. I’ll never give you up,—remember that.”