On the evening of Hal’s departure, as Patience was braiding her hair for the night, there was a sharp ring at the bell, and a few moments later Ellen came upstairs with a card inscribed “Mr. Beverly Peele.” Patience felt disposed to send word that she had retired, so thoroughly had she lost interest in the young man; but reflecting that he had probably ridden ten miles on a cold night to see her, told Ellen to light all the burners in the parlour, and twisted up her hair.

As she went downstairs she saw a heavy overcoat on the hall table.

“If it had occurred to me that he had come by train,” she thought, “I’d have let him go home again.”

He came forward with his charming smile, looking remarkably handsome in his evening clothes.

“It was kind of you to come,” she said, too unsophisticated to feel embarrassed at receiving a man at night in a house where she lived alone with a servant. “Of course you knew how lonely I must be.”

“Hal is good company, isn’t she?” he asked, holding her hand and staring hard at her. “But I should think she’d miss you more than you’d miss her.”

Patience withdrew her hand abruptly. Her face wore its accustomed cold gravity, contradicted by the eager eyes of youth. “Won’t you sit down? I hope Hal has missed me, but she has hardly had time to tell you so.”

“Hasn’t she? She has had several hours, and I suppose you know by this time how fast she can talk. She’s awfully bright, don’t you think so?”

“Indeed she is.”

“She isn’t a beauty like May, nor intellectual like Honora, but you can’t have everything—that is, everybody can’t.”

“Does any one?” asked Patience, indifferently.

“Hal says you are the cleverest woman she has ever met,—and—”

“I’m afraid Hal is carried away by the enthusiasms of the moment,” said Patience, as he paused. She was highly gratified, nevertheless.

“—you are the prettiest woman I ever saw,” he continued, as if she had not spoken.

“Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed Patience, angrily, but the colour flew to her face.

“I mean it,” and indisputably his eyes spoke admiration. “I’ve thought of no one else since I was here. I haven’t come before, because there’s nothing in calling on your sister, and that’s what it would have amounted to. But, you see, I’m here the very night she left.”

“You are very flattering.” Patience was beginning to feel vaguely uncomfortable. She realised that the lore gathered from novels was valueless in a practical emergency, and longed for the experience of Hal. “I understand that you are considered fascinating, and I suppose most women do like to be flattered.”

“I never paid a woman a compliment before in my life,” he said, unblushingly. “You don’t look a bit like any woman I ever saw. Hal says you look like a ‘white star on a dark night,’ and that’s about the size of it. You have such lovely hair and skin. I’ve always rather admired plump women, but your slenderness suits you—”

“Oh, please talk about something else! I am not used to such stuff, and I don’t like it. Suppose you talk about yourself.” (She had read that man could ever be beguiled by this bait.) “Are you as fond of travel as Hal is?”

“I never travel,” he said shortly. “When I find a comfortable place I stay in it. Westchester County suits me down to the ground.”

“You mean to say that you can travel and don’t? that you don’t care at all to see the beautiful things in Europe?”

“Oh, my mother always brings home a lot of photographs and things, and that’s all I want of it. I never could understand why Americans are so restless. I’m sick of the very sound of Europe, anyway.”

“Are you fond of New York?”

“New York is the centre of the earth, and full of pretty—interesting things, dontcherknow? I’ve had some gay times there, I can tell you. But I’ve settled down now, and prefer Westchester County to any place on earth. I’d rather be behind or on a horse than anything else.”

“Don’t you care for society?”

“I hate it. One winter was enough for me. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me into a ball-room again. Of course when the house is full of company in summer I like that well enough. I play billiards with the men and spoon—flirt with the girls and the pretty married women; but I’m just as contented when they’ve all cleared out.”

“Do you mean to say that you stay in the country by yourself all winter? What do you do? Read?”

“N-o-o-o. I don’t care much about books. We have a big farm and I run it, and I skate and drive and ride and smoke—Oh, there’s plenty to do. Occasionally I go to town and have a little fun.”

“What do you call fun if you don’t like society,—the theatre?”

“The theatre!” he laughed. “I never sat out a play in my life. Oh, I don’t know you well enough to tell you everything yet. Sometime, I’ll tell you a lot of funny things.”

“Perhaps you enjoy the newspapers in winter,” said Patience, hastily.

“Oh, I read even the advertisements. The papers are all the reading any man wants. There are two or three good sensational stories every day.”

“I don’t read those,” said Patience, disgustedly. This idol appeared to be clay straight up to his hair. “I like to read the big news and Mr. Field’s editorials.”

“Oh, you need educating. I read those too—not Field; he’s too much for me. But I didn’t come here to talk about newspapers—”

“Won’t you smoke a cigar?”

“No, thanks. I smoked all the way down, and in the cab too, for that matter—”

“Are the horses standing out there in the cold? Wouldn’t you like to tell him to take them to the barn?”

“I suppose he can look after his own horses. They’re nothing but old hacks, anyhow.” He leaned forward abruptly and took her hand, pressing it closely. “Oh!” he said. “I’ve been wild to see you again.”

Patience attempted to jerk her hand away, acutely conscious of a desire to return his clasp. She did the worst thing possible, but the only thing that could be expected: she lost her head. “I don’t like you to do that,” she exclaimed. “Let me go! What do you mean, anyhow?”

“That you are the loveliest woman I ever saw. I have been wild about you—” He had taken her other hand, and his face was close to hers. He had lowered his lids slightly.

“And you think that because I am alone here you can say what you like?” she cried passionately. “You would not dare act like this with one of your mother’s guests!”

“Oh, wouldn’t I?” He laughed disagreeably. “But what is the use of being a goose—”

Patience sprang to her feet, overturning her chair: but she only succeeded in pulling him to his feet also; he would not release her hands.

“I wish you would leave the house,” she said, stamping her foot. “If you don’t let me go, I’ll call Ellen.”

“Oh, don’t make a goose of yourself. And I’m not afraid of a servant. I’m not going to murder you—nor anything else. Only,—do you drive all men wild like this?”

“I don’t know anything about men,” almost sobbed Patience, “and I don’t want to. Will you go?”

“No, I won’t.” He released her hands suddenly; and, as she made a spring for the door, flung his arms about her. She ducked her head and fought him, but he kissed her cheeks and brow and hair. His lips burnt her delicate skin, his powerful embrace seemed absorbing her. She was filled with fury and loathing, but the blood pounded in her ears, and the very air seemed humming. The man’s magnetism was purely animal, but it was a tremendous force.

“You are a brute, a beast!” she sobbed. “Let me go! Let me go!”

“I won’t,” he muttered. He too had lost his head. “I’ll not leave you.” He strove to reach her mouth. She managed to disengage her right arm, and clinching her hand hit him a smart blow in the face. He laughed, and caught her hand, holding it out at arm’s length.

“Ellen!” she cried. As she lifted her head to call he was quick to see his advantage. His mouth closed suddenly on hers.

The room swam round her. She ceased to struggle. Her feet had touched that nether world where the electrical forces of the universe appear to be generated, and its wonder—not the man—conquered her. She shook horribly. She felt a tumultuous impulse to spring upon her ideals and beat them in the face.

Heavy footfalls sounded in the kitchen hall.

“There is Ellen!” she gasped, wrenching herself free. The man stamped his foot. He looked hideous.

“Go!” said Patience. “Go, just as fast as you can, and don’t you ever come here again. If you do, it won’t do you any good, for you’ll not see me.”

And she ran upstairs and locked her door loudly.