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.”