there was a good deal of wax in me then, and if you could have gotten it
between your hands I think that what you moulded would have closely
resembled your ideal—the impression you had already made had so
strongly coloured and trained my imagination. But,” she continued
hastily, and glancing anxiously to the far distant end of the avenue,
“you see my life changed immediately after that, and I went into the
world and became hard and bitter and cynical. I have no ideals left, and
I do not want any—I have seen too much—”

“Hush!” he said passionately, “I do not believe a word of it. Why, that
was not two years ago, and you are still a young girl. Have you loved
any one else?” he asked abruptly, his voice less steady.

“No!”

He was too excited to note the meaning of her emphasis. He was only
conscious that he was very close to a beautiful woman who allured him in
all ways as no one woman had ever done before.

“You are full of a girl’s cynicism,” he said; “you have seen just enough
to make you think you know the world—to accept the superficial for the
real. You—you yourself are an ideal. All you need is to know yourself,
and I am going to undertake the task of teaching you—do you hear? If I
fail—if I have made a mistake—if it is only the night and your beauty
that have gone to my head—well and good; but I shall have the
satisfaction of having tried—of knowing—”

“No, no! No, no!” she said. “You must not come here again. I do not want
to see you again—”

“Nonsense! You have some sentimental foolish idea in your head,—or
perhaps you are engaged to some man who can give you great wealth and
position. I shall not regard that, either. If I feel to you by daylight
as I do now, I’ll have you—do you understand?”

Patience opened her lips to tell him the truth, then cynically made up
her mind to let matters take their course. At the same time she was
bitterly resentful that she should feel as she did, not as she had once
dreamed of feeling for this man.

“Very well,” she said, “I shall be here for a while.”

“And I shall see you in the course of a day or two. I’m going now.
Good-night.” He let her arm slip from under his, but held her hand
closely. “And even if it so happened that I never did see you again, I
should thank you for the glimpse you have given me of a woman I hardly
dared dream existed.”

When he had gone she anathematised fate for a moment, then went back to
her guests.

                                  XII

Latimer Burr was evidently a man upon whom rebuff sat lightly. The next
morning he came suddenly upon Patience in a dark corner, and tried to
kiss her. Whenever the opportunity offered he held her hand, and once,
to her infinite disgust, he planted his foot squarely on hers under the
dinner table. A few hours later they happened to be alone in one of the
small reception-rooms.

“Look here,” exclaimed Patience, wrathfully, “will you let me alone?”

“No, I won’t,” he said good-naturedly. “Jove! but you are a beauty!”

She wore a gown of white mull and lace, trimmed with large knots of
dark-blue velvet. She had been talking all the evening with Mr. Peele,
Mr. Field, and Burr, and was somewhat excited. Her lips were very pink,
her eyes very bright and dark. She held her head with a young triumph in
beauty and the intellectual tribute of clever men.

“Hal would be delighted. She has always wanted me to become the
fashion.”

“You never will be that, for there are not enough brainy men in society
to appreciate you. If all were like myself, you would be wearied with
the din of admiration—”

“There’s nothing like having a good opinion of oneself.”

“Why not? I don’t set up to be an intellectual man—intellectual men are
out of date; but I’m a brainy man, and I’d like to know how I’m to help
being aware of the fact. I certainly don’t claim to be pretty, so you
can’t say I’m actually wallowing in conceit.”

Patience was forced to laugh. “Oh, you’d do very well if you’d exercise
as much sense in regard to women as you do to affairs. Just answer me
one question, will you? Are you so amazingly fascinating that women have
the habit of succumbing at the end of the second interview?”

“I never set up to be an ass.”

“But your manner is quite assured. You seem very much surprised that I
don’t tumble into your arms and say ‘Thank you.’ Oh, you New York men
are so funny!”

“Well, answer me one question—you don’t love your husband, do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Do you like me?”

“I would if you wouldn’t make such an idiot of yourself. You certainly
are very agreeable to talk to.”

He came closer, his lids falling. The fine repose of his manner was a
trifle ruffled. “Do you love anybody else?” he asked.

“I do not.”

“Then let me love you.”

“I shall not.”

“Then if you don’t love your husband and you like me and will not let me
love you, you must have a lover.”

Patience burst into brief hilarity.

“Is that the logic of your kind?”

“A beautiful woman that does not love her husband always loves another
man.”

“Or is willing to be loved by the first man that happens to have no
other affair on hand.”

“You have said that you like me.”

“I didn’t say I loved you!”

“I’d make you!”

“Oh!” with a deep contempt he was incapable of understanding, “you
couldn’t. But tell me another thing; I’m very curious. Has it never
occurred to you that a woman must be wooed, that it is somewhat
necessary to arouse sentiment and feeling in her before she is willing
to advance one step? Why, you and your kind demand her off-hand in a way
that is positively funny. What has become of all the old traditions?”

“Oh, bother,” he said. “Life is too short to waste time on old-fashioned
nonsense. If a man wants a woman he says so, and if she’s sensible and
likes him she meets him half way. Men and women of the world know what
they want.”

“That is all there is to love then? It no longer means anything else
whatever?”

“Oh—you are all wrong. If you were not a spiritual woman I wouldn’t
cross the room to win you. One can buy the other sort. It is your
spirituality, your intellectuality, that fascinates me as much as your
beauty.”

“What do you know about spirituality?” she said contemptuously. “I don’t
like to hear you speak the word. You desecrate it.”

He flushed purple. “There are few things I don’t understand—and a good
deal better than you do, perhaps.”

“You have a clever man’s perception, that is all. Association with all
sorts of women has taught you the difference between them. But what
could you give a spiritual woman? Nothing. You have not a shrunken
kernel of soul. The sensual envelope is too thick; your brain too
crowded with the thousand and one petty experiences of material life.
You are as ingenuous as all fast men, for the women you have spent your
life running after make no demands upon subtlety—”

“Take care,” he said angrily; “you are going too far. I tell you I have
as much soul as any man living.”

“Perhaps. I doubt if any man has much. Men give women nothing, as far as
I can see. If we want companionship there seems nothing to do but to
descend to your level and grovel with you.”

“I would never make you grovel. I would reverence—”

“Oh, rot!” she cried, stamping her foot. “What a fool—and worse—the
average woman must be. You have no idea how ingenuously you are giving
away the women of society. And soul! The idea of a man who pretends to
love the woman he is engaged to and is making love to another, and that
her sister-in-law and most intimate friend, claiming to have a soul!
Have you no sense of humour? I say nothing about honour, as I wish to be
understood, if possible; but you are clever enough to see the ridiculous
in most things—Please don’t walk over me. There is plenty of room. And
the windows are open, you know—”

“Yes, and I am here,” cried a furious voice, and Beverly sprang into the
room.

Patience stepped back with a faint exclamation. Burr turned white.
Beverly was shaking with rage. His face was almost black; there were
white flecks on his nostrils.

“I kept quiet,” he articulated, “to hear every word. You dog!” to Burr.
“I may be pretty bad, but I’d never do what you have done. And as for
you,” he shook his fist at his wife, “you were only leading him on. If I
could only have held myself in another moment I’d have seen you in his
arms. Get out of this house,” he roared, “both of you. You’ll never
marry my sister. I’m going to tell her this minute—”

Burr sprang forward and caught him by the collar; but Beverly was not a
coward. He turned, flinging out his fist, and the two men grappled.
Patience closed the door and glanced out of the window. No one was near.
Voices floated up from the cliffs. Burr was the more powerful man of the
two, and in a moment had flung Beverly, panting, into a chair.

“Keep him here,” said Patience, rapidly, and she left the room.

“Man is certainly still a savage, a brute,” she thought. “What is the
matter with civilisation?”

As she crossed the lawn, she met one of the servants.

“Go and find Miss Hal, and ask her to come here,” she said. A few
moments later her sister-in-law hurried up from the cliffs.

“What is it?” she called cheerily. “Has Bev had an apoplectic fit?”

“Beverly has been making a greater fool of himself than usual,” said
Patience, as the girls met, “and I want to see you before he does. I was
standing in one of the reception-rooms talking to Mr. Burr after Mr.
Field and Mr. Peele had gone out, and he had on all his manner and was
telling me how beautiful I was, in his usual after dinner style, when
Beverly leaped through the window like the wronged husband in the
melodrama and accused us of making love. He threatened to come and tell
you, and he and Mr. Burr wrestled like two prize-fighters. If Beverly
were put on the witness stand he’d be obliged to admit that Mr. Burr had
not so much as touched my hand. I suppose you will believe me?”

Hal gave her light laugh. “Certainly, my dear, certainly; although if I
were a man I should fall in love with you myself. I wouldn’t bet on
Latimer, but I would on you—so don’t worry your little head. Do you
suppose I expect a man with that mouth and those eyes to be faithful to
me? Still, I must say that I should have given him credit for more
decency than to make love to my sister-in-law—”

“He didn’t! I swear he didn’t.”

“Oh, of course not! Nor will he make love to every pretty woman he finds
himself alone with for five minutes. He can’t help it, poor thing. Let
us go and talk to the gentlemen.”

As they entered the little room she exclaimed airily, “Been making a
fool of yourself again, Bev? No, don’t speak. Patience has told me all
about it. I have every confidence in her and Latimer. Better go and take
a spin with Tammany. Latimer, you really must mend your manners. They’re
too good. From a distance a stranger would really think you were making
love when you are swearing at the heat. Now, come down to the Tea House.
Good-night, Bevvy dear.”

And she went off between her lover and her sister-in-law, leaving her
brother to swear forth his righteous indignation.

That night Patience opened the door of her husband’s room for the first
time. Beverly, who had just entered, was so astonished that the wrath he
had carefully nourished fell like quicksilver under a cool wave, and he
stared at her without speaking.

“I wish to tell you,” said his wife, “that you were entirely justified
in being angry to-night. I could have suppressed Burr by a word, but I
chose to lead him on to gratify my curiosity. Hal wishes to marry him,
and I am determined that she shall. If I had admitted the truth to her
or permitted you to enlighten her, her self-respect would have forced
her to break the engagement. That would have been absurd, for the match
is exactly what she wants, and she is not marrying with illusions. But
you have been treated inconsiderately, and I apologise for my share in
it. Will you forgive me?”

“Of course I’ll forgive you,” said Beverly, eagerly. “I wasn’t angry
with you, anyhow—only with that scoundrel. But I never believed you’d
do this. Do you care for me a little?”

Patience averted her face that she might not see the expression on his.
Despite her loathing of him she gave him a certain measure of pity. With
all the preponderance of the savage in him and the limitations of his
intelligence he had his own capacity for suffering, and to-night he
stood before her crushed under the sudden reaction, his eyes full of the
dumb appeal of shrinking brutes.

“If we are going to live peacefully don’t let us discuss that subject,”
she said gently. “We have both missed it, and I sometimes think that you
are more to be pitied than I am. However, I shall not flirt—I promise
you that. Good-night.”

That was the last of Mr. Burr’s illegal love-making at Peele Manor. He
had had a fright and a lesson, and he forgot neither.

                                  XIII

“Garan Bourke is coming to dinner to-night,” said Hal, the next day.
“It’s the hardest thing in the world to get him; he never goes anywhere;
but he half promised mamma, when he called the other night, that he’d
come some day this week, and he wrote yesterday, saying he’d dine with
us to-day. I want you to meet him. He is awfully clever, and when he
talks I want to close my eyes and listen to his voice. If the dear girls
ever get the vote and do jury duty, all he’ll have to do will be to
quote law. He needn’t take the trouble to sum up. His voice will do the
business every time.”

Patience, in a French gown of black chiffon, was very beautiful that
night. She did not go down to dinner until every one was seated. Bourke
sat next to Mrs. Peele. Her own chair was near the end of the opposite
side of the long table. For a time she did not look at Bourke. When she
did she met his eyes; and knew by their expression that some one had
told him she was the wife of Beverly Peele.

After dinner he went with Mr. Peele and Burr into the library. Patience
was about to follow a party of young people down to the bluff, when Mr.
Field drew her arm firmly through his.

“You are not going to desert your court?” he said. “Why, you don’t
suppose I come up here to talk to Peele, do you? If you go out with
those boys I’ll never come here again.” And he led her into the library.

It was nearly twelve o’clock when she found herself alone with Bourke.
The others had gone out, one by one. She had made no attempt to follow
them. She sat with defiant eyes and inward trepidation. Bourke regarded
her with narrowed eyes and twitching nostrils.

“So you are married?” he said at last.

“Yes.”

“And you deliberately made a fool of me?”

“No—no—I did nothing deliberately that night—no—I acted on impulse.
And all that I said was quite true. Of course I should have told you—”

“But it would have spoiled your comedy.”

“No—no—don’t think that. I see that I was dishonest—I am not making
excuses—I never thought you’d become really interested—”

“I am not breaking my heart. Don’t let that worry you. The mere fact of
your dishonesty is quite enough to break the spell—for you are not the
woman I imagined you to be. I was merely worshipping an ideal for the
hour. Do you love your husband?”

“No.”

“Then you are a harlot,” he said, deliberately. “It only needed that.”
He rose to his feet and looked contemptuously at her scarlet face. “At
all events it was an amusing episode,” he said. “Good-night.”

                                  XIV

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.”

                                   XV

On the first of December Patience and Beverly were alone once more. The
weather was fine, and Beverly temporarily absorbed in breaking in a colt
on his private track. Patience spent the first day wandering about the
woods, tormented by her thoughts. She remembered with passionate regret
the old crystal woods where she had been a girl of dreams and ideals.
Her ideals were in ruins. The hero of her dreams had told her a hideous
truth that had made her hate him and more abundantly despise herself.
She longed ardently to get away to a mountain top, a hundred miles from
civilisation. Nature had been her friend in the old Californian days,
and the green or white beauty of her second environment had satisfied
her in that peaceful intermediate time. But Westchester County, although
exquisitely pretty, lacked grandeur and the suggestion of colossal
throes in remote ages with which every stone in California is eloquent.
That was what she wanted now. But there was no prospect of getting away.
Did she have enthusiasm enough left to leave summarily she had little
money. She was very extravagant, and left the larger part of her
quarterly allowance with New York shops and milliners and dressmakers;
but she knew that the end was approaching, and listlessly awaited it.

Heavy with rebellious disgust she returned to the house and went
mechanically to the library. For a while she did not read; she felt no
impulse to do so. But after a time she took down a book in desperation,
a volume of a new edition de luxe of “Childe Harold.” She had not read
it during her brief Byronic fever, and had not opened the poet since.
Gradually she forgot self. She began with the third canto, and when she
had finished the fourth she discovered that her spirits were lighter, a
weight had risen from her brain. She had always regarded “notes” as an
evidence of the amateur reader, but to-day she scrawled on a fly-leaf of
Mr. Peele’s new morocco edition:—

    “As the Christian goes to his God for help, the intellectual, in
    hours of depression and disgust and doubt go to the great
    Creators of Literature, those master minds that lift our own
    temporarily above the terrible enigma of the commonplace, and
    possess us to the extinction of personal meditation. Are not
    these genii as worthy of deification by the higher civilisation
    as was Jesus Christ—their brother—by the great illogical
    suffering mass of mankind? ‘Faith shall make ye whole,’ said
    Christ; ‘come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden.’ ‘Develop
    your brain, and I will give you self-oblivion, philosophy, and a
    soul of many windows,’ say the great masters of thought and
    style, the stupendous creative imaginations.”

Beverly came home in high good humour; his colt had showed his blood,
and nearly pulled him out of the break-cart. Patience endeavoured to
appear interested, and he was so pleased that the atmosphere during
dinner was quite domestic. Afterward he went to sleep on a sofa by the
library fire, and his wife read.

A week passed more placidly than Patience had expected. Beverly was
evidently under stress to make himself agreeable. His wife suspected
that he had had a long and meaning conference with his father. In truth
he was desperately afraid that she would leave him. Patience did not
know whether she hated him most when he was amiable or violent; but she
hated herself more than she hated him.

“I think I’ll go to town and see Rosita,” she thought one morning as she
awakened. “It seems to me that she is the fittest companion I could
find.”

At the breakfast-table she appeared in a tailor frock and turban, and
informed Beverly that she was going to town to pay some visits. Beverly
looked at her for a moment with black face, then dropped his eyes
without comment. He recalled his father’s advice.

“What train shall you come home in?” he asked after a moment. “I’ll go
down to the station to meet you.”

“I cannot say. I shall be back to dinner.”

“Aren’t you going to kiss me good-bye?” he asked sullenly, when she was
about to open the front door. She hesitated a moment, then raised her
face, closing her eyes, lest he should see the impulse to strike him. He
saw the hesitation and turned away with an oath, then ran after her,
flung his arms about her and kissed her. She walked down to the station
with burning face, rubbing her mouth and cheeks violently, careless of
the wide-eyed regard of two gardeners.

                                  XVI

When she arrived at Rosita’s the maid admitted her without protest, not
recognising in this elegant young woman the countrified girl of two
years before. She left Patience in the dark drawing-room, but returned
in a moment and announced that Madame would see Mrs. Peele at once.
Patience followed the woman through the boudoir and bedroom to the
bath-room, a classic apartment of pink tiles. The tub was merely one
corner of the room walled off with tiles; and in it, covered from throat
to foot with a sheet, her head on a silken strap, lay Rosita. By her
side sat a girl in a fashionable ulster and large hat, a note-book and
pencil on her lap. Rosita looked like a dark-haired Aphrodite, and was
as fresh as a rose. A maid had just dried one pink and white hand, and
she held it out to Patience.

“Patita! Patita! Patita!” she said with her sweet drawl and accent, and
without a trace of resentment in her soft heavy eyes. “Where, where have
you been all these years? Miss Merrien, this is my oldest and dearest
friend, Mrs. Beverly Peele [she pronounced the name with visible pride].
Patita, this is Miss Merrien of the ‘Day.’ She is interviewing me.”

Patience flushed as she bent her head to the young woman, who regarded
her with conspicuous amazement, and whose nostrils quivered a little, as
if she scented a “story.” She was a pretty girl with a dark rather worn
face, a frank eye, and a nervous manner.

“Patita, sit down there just for a moment while I look at you. Then we
will go into the other room. I could not wait to see you. _Dios de mi
alma_, but you have changed, Patita _mia_. Who would ever have thought
that you would be such a beauty and such a swell. Gray cloth and
chinchilla! Just think, Miss Merrien, we used to wear sunbonnets and
copper-toed boots, and drove an old blind horse that would not go off a
walk.”

“May I put that down?” asked the girl, eagerly.

“Oh, please don’t,” exclaimed Patience. Miss Merrien’s face fell. Then
she smiled, and said good-naturedly, “All right, I won’t.”

“And now Patita is a swell,” pursued Rosita, as if no interruption had
occurred, “and I am a famous _prima donna_. Such is life. Patita, do you
know that I have two hundred thousand dollars invested?”

“Really?”

“_Si, señorita!_ Oh, my price has gone up, Patita _mia_,” and she
laughed her low delicious laugh.

Miss Merrien smiled. “A man shot himself for that laugh the other day—I
suppose you read about it,” she said.

“No, I did not. I have read the newspapers irregularly of late—the
‘stories,’ at least.”

“It is true,” said Rosita, complacently. “Oh, Patita, life is so lovely.
To think that we both had such great destinies! _Pobre_ Manuela, and
Panchita, and all the rest! _Bueno_, go into the bedroom, both of you,
and I will be there in ten minutes.”

Patience and Miss Merrien seated themselves in the white bower of velvet
and lace.

“Please do not put me into your story,” said Patience, hastily. “It
would not do—you see my husband would not like it—but we are old
friends, and I wanted to see her.”

Miss Merrien nodded intelligently. With the suspicion of her craft she
leaped to the conclusion that the fashionable young woman came to her
disreputable friend for an occasional lark.

“Oh, I promise you. If you hadn’t asked me I should though. It would
make a fine story.”

“Tell me,” said Patience abruptly, “do you like being a newspaper woman?
Is it very hard work?”

“Yes, it’s hard work,” Miss Merrien answered in some surprise; “but then
it is the most fascinating, I do believe, in the whole world. I have a
family and a home out West, and I could go back and be comfortable if I
wanted to; but I wouldn’t give up this life, with all its grind and
uncertainty, for that dead and alive existence. I only go out there once
a year to rest. I came on here for an experiment, to see a little of the
world. I had a dreadful time catching on; once I thought I’d starve, for
I was bound I wouldn’t write home for money; but I hung on and got
there. And I’m here to stay.”

“Oh, is it really so pleasant? Sometimes I wish I were a newspaper
woman.”

“You? You? I never saw anybody that looked less like one.”

“I am very strong. I am naturally pale, that is all.”

“Oh, your skin is lovely: it’s that warm dead white. I wasn’t thinking
of that. But you look like the princess that felt the pea under sixteen
mattresses.”

“One adapts one’s self easily to luxury. I have only had it two years. I
do like it certainly. Nevertheless, I’d like to be a newspaper woman.
You look tired; are you?”

“Yes, I am, Mrs. Peele. It’s hard work, if it is fascinating; for
instance, I’ve chased about this entire week for stories that haven’t
panned out for a cent. I haven’t made ten dollars. I came up here as a
last resource. La Rosita is always good-natured, and I hoped she’d have
a story for me. But all I’ve got is a crank that’s following her about
threatening to kill her if she doesn’t marry him, and that’s such a
chestnut. If I could only fake something I know she’d let it go, but my
imagination’s worn to a thread—”

The portière was pushed aside, and Rosita entered. She wore a glistening
night-robe of silk and lace and ribbon under a yellow plush bath gown.
Her dense black hair fell to her knees. She slid into bed and ordered
her maid to admit the manicure. An old woman, looking like a witch and
clad in shabby black, came in and took a chair beside the bed. The maid
brought a crystal bowl and warm water, and a golden manicure set, and
Rosita held forth her incomparable arm with its little Spanish hand. She
lay with indolent grace among the large pillows.

“You certainly are a beauty,” exclaimed Miss Merrien, enthusiastically.

Rosita smiled with much pleasure. “I love to hear a woman say that, and
I shall make good copy for many years yet. I shall not fade like most
Spanish women. Oh, I have learned many secrets.”

“I wish you hadn’t told them to me, and then I should still have them to
write about. They made a great story.”

“_Dios! Dios!_” said Rosita, plaintively, “I wish we could think of
something. I hate to send you away with nothing at all. I love to be
written about. Patita, can’t you think of something?”

“Now, Mrs. Peele,” said Miss Merrien, “let us see if you are a good
fakir. That is one of the first essentials of being a successful
newspaper woman.”

“Oh, dear! Is it? If I could fake I’d make books. I’d like that even
better. Rosita, did you ever tell the newspapers about that time I
coached you for your first appearance on any stage, and the great hit
you made?”

“What is that?” asked Miss Merrien, sharply.

“I never thought of it. Patita, you tell the story.”

This Patience did, while Miss Merrien wrote rapidly in shorthand,
pausing occasionally to exclaim with rapture.

“Oh, my good angel sent me here this morning,” she said when Patience
had finished. “I won’t mention your name, of course, but you won’t mind
my saying that you are one of the Four Hundred.”

“I don’t suppose there is any objection. I am such an obscure member of
it that no one will suspect me. Only don’t give any details.”

“Oh, I won’t, indeed I won’t.” She slipped her book into her muff and
rose to go. “You don’t know how much obliged I am. I’ll do as much for
you some day. If ever you want to be written up, let me know.”

“I never should want to be in the newspapers.”

“Oh, there’s no telling. You haven’t had a taste of it yet. Well,
good-morning,” and she went out.

Patience leaned back in her luxurious chair, and watched the old woman
polish the pretty nails. Rosita babbled, and Patience watched her face
closely. Its colouring was as fresh, its contours as perfect as ever,
but there was a faint touch of hardness somewhere, and the eyes held
more secrets than they had two years ago. They were the eyes of the
wanton. For a moment Patience forgot her surroundings. Her mind flew
back to the old days, to the rickety buggy with the two contented
innocent little girls, then, by a natural deflection, to her tower and
her dreams. She longed passionately for the old Mission, and wondered if
Solomon were still alive. Then she thought of Bourke, and came back to
the present with a shudder. The woman had gone.

“What is the matter?” asked Rosita. “Is it true—what the men say—that
you are not happy with your husband?”

“I hate him,” said Patience.

“Why don’t you get a divorce?”

“I have no grounds.”

“No grounds? Fancy a wife having no grounds!”

“I have not the slightest doubt of his faith.”

“Send him to me.”

“Oh, Rosita! How can you be so coarse?”

“No-o-o-o! You are my old friend. I would do anything for you. Think it
over, Patita _mia_.”

“I do not need to think it over. I would never do so vile a thing as
that. Have you no refinement left?”

“What earthly use would I have for refinement? Patita, you are such a
baby, and you always had ideals and things. Have you got them yet?”

“No,” said Patience, rising abruptly. “I haven’t. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Patita dear,” said Rosita, with unruffled good humour, “and
if ever you are in trouble come here and I will take you in. I would
even lend you money, and if you knew me you would know how much I loved
you to do that. There is not another person living I would give a five
cent piece to.”

When Patience reached the sidewalk she filled her lungs with fresh air,
then looked at her watch. It was only a half after twelve, and she
decided to call on Mary Gallatin. She had never yet paid that charming
young fashionette the promised morning call, although she had attended
one or two of her afternoon receptions.

She told the coachman to drive to the house in Fifty-seventh Street,
then threw herself back on the seat and laughed, a long unpleasant
laugh. She tapped first one foot and then the other, with increasing
nervousness.

“What fools we mortals be to cry for the unattainable,” she said,
addressing the little mirror opposite. “Probably that young newspaper
woman envies me bitterly. So, doubtless, do many others. Why on earth am
I longing for what I’ll never find, instead of making the best of a bad
bargain and the most of my position? I think I’ll find my way out of the
difficulty with the average woman’s solution: I’ll take a lover.”

The carriage stopped before a house with the breadth of stoop which in
New York means plentiful wealth. She waited in the drawing-room while
the cautious butler went up to see if his mistress would receive this
stranger. He returned in a moment and conducted her up to a door at the
front of the house. Patience entered a large room whose light was so
subdued that for a moment she could see only vaguely outlined forms.

“Oh, Mrs. Beverly, how dear of you,” cried a sweet voice, and Patience
groped her way round the angle of a large bed and saw Mrs. Gallatin
sitting against a mass of pillows. “I’m so glad you came this morning.
I’m feeling so blue. I’ve twisted my foot, you know, and my friends are
so kind to me. Mr. Rutger, give Mrs. Peele a chair. Mrs. Beverly, you
know Mr. Rutger and Mr. Maitland and Mr. Owen, do you not? There is
Leontine.”

The three young men, who had risen as she entered, bowed and resumed
their seats. Mrs. Lafarge threw her a kiss from the depths of a chair by
the fire.

Patience sat down and glanced about her while Mrs. Lafarge finished an
anecdote she had been telling. Her eyes became accustomed to the light,
and in a moment she saw things quite distinctly. The large room was
furnished in Empire style, the walls and windows and the great mahogany
and brass bedstead covered with crimson satin damask. There were only a
few pieces of heavy furniture, in the room, but like the bed they were
magnificent. Each brass carving told a different story.

Mrs. Gallatin, smiling, exquisite, wore a cambric gown, less elaborate
than Rosita’s but more dainty. Her shining hair was drawn modishly to
the top of her head and confined with a pink porcelain comb, carved into
semblance of wild roses. A pink silk shawl slipped from her shoulders.
Another wild rose was at her throat. On her hands she wore rubies only.

The story Mrs. Lafarge told was slightly naughty, and all laughed
heartily at its conclusion. Patience had heard too many naughty stories
in the last two years to be shocked; but when one of the young men began
another he was promptly hissed down.

“You are not going to tell that before Mrs. Beverly,” said Mary
Gallatin. “She is quite too frightfully proper. But we’re awfully fond
of her all the same,” and she patted Patience’s hand while her lovely
young face contracted in a charming scowl. Patience wondered if she had
a lover—Mr. Gallatin was a dapper little man—and if that was why she
looked so happy. She glanced speculatively at the men, and wondered if
she could fall in love with one of them. But they were very ordinary New
York youths of fashion, high of shoulder, slow of speech, large of
epiglottis, vacuous of expression. She shook her head unconsciously.

“Why, what on earth are you thinking about?” cried Mrs. Gallatin, with
her silvery laugh. “That wasn’t a shake of disapproval, was it?”

“Oh, no, no!” said Patience, hastily. “Something occurred to me, and I
forgot I was not alone. You see, I am so much alone that I’ve even
gotten into the habit of thinking out loud.” She felt that she was a
restraint—the suppressed young man had relapsed into moody
silence—and, as soon as she reasonably could, rose to go. Mrs. Gallatin
kissed her warmly and Mrs. Lafarge came forward and kissed her also; but
Patience detected a faint note of relief in their voices, and went
downstairs feeling more depressed than ever. “There seems to be no place
for me,” she thought. “I must be out of tune with everything.”

She went to her father-in-law’s house in Eleventh Street and found Mrs.
Peele and Honora gowned for expected luncheon guests. The former
apologised coldly for not being able to ask her to join them, but “there
was only room in the dining-room for eight.” Honora rippled regret, and
Patience felt that she should disgrace herself with tears if she did not
get out of the house. She went directly to the station, intending to
return home, but as the train approached Peele Manor she turned her back
squarely on the old house and decided to go on to Mariaville and see
Miss Beale. She remembered with satisfaction that she knew at least one
wholesome thoroughly sincere woman, however misguided.

When she reached the station she concluded to walk to the house. She
felt nervous and excited. Her cheeks burned and her temples ached a
little. She had taken no nourishment that day but a cup of coffee and a
roll, and her head felt light. It was now two o’clock.

When she had gone a little more than half way she lifted her eyes and
saw Miss Beale coming toward her with beaming face, one hand ready to
wave.

“Why, Patience!” she cried, as they met. “I’m so glad to see you. I’m
just going to kiss you if it is on the street. I can’t say I thought
you’d forgotten me, for you’ve sent me money for my poor every time I
begged for it; but I did think you’d never come to see me.”

Patience had no excuse to offer, so wisely attempted none, but returned
Miss Beale’s embrace heartily. The older woman’s face was brilliant with
pleasure.

“Dear me, how pretty you have grown! What a colour! I’m so glad to see
you looking so well. How happy dear Miss Tremont would be to see you
now. She was always afraid you would be delicate. But we can’t wish her
back, can we, Patience?”

“There’s no use wishing anything undone. Where are you going?”

“Where I am going to take you. Now, don’t ask any questions, but just
come along.”

Patience, hoping that the destination was a fair where she could get
luncheon, followed submissively, and evaded Miss Beale’s personal
inquiries as best she could.

“How does the Temperance Cause get on?” she asked at length.

“Oh, just the same! Just the same!” said Miss Beale, with a cheerful
sigh. “One makes slow progress in this wicked world; all we can do is to
trust in the Lord and do our humble best. Mariaville has three new
saloons, and the father of one of my scholars beat him nearly to death
the other day for coming to the Loyal Legion class; but we’ll win in the
end.”

“Meanwhile are you as much interested as ever?” asked Patience,
curiously.

“Oh, my!” Miss Beale gave an almost hilarious laugh. “Well, I should
think so. How could I ever lose interest in the Lord’s work? Why, I
never even get discouraged.”

“It has occurred to me, sometimes—since I have been away and met all
sorts of people—that if you really were Temperance you might have more
chance of success.”

“If we were what?”

“Temperance in the actual meaning of the word. You’re not, you know;
you’re teetotalists. That is the reason you antagonise so many thousands
of men who might be glad to help you with their vote otherwise. The
average gentleman—and there are thousands upon thousands of him—never
gets drunk, and enjoys his wine at dinner and even his whiskey and
water. He doesn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t have it, and there
isn’t any. It adds to the pleasures of life. Those are the people that
really represent Temperance, and naturally they have no sympathy with a
movement that they consider narrow-minded and an unwarrantable
intrusion.”

Miss Beale shook her head vigorously. “It is a sin to touch it!” she
exclaimed, “and sooner or later they will all be drunkards, every one of
them. The blessing of God is not on alcohol, and it should be banished
from the face of the earth.”

Patience was in a perverse and almost ugly mood. “Tell me,” she said,
“how do you reconcile your animosity to alcohol with the story of
Christ’s turning the water into wine at the wedding feast?”

“It wasn’t wine,” said Miss Beale, triumphantly; “it was grape juice.
Wine takes days to ferment, so the water couldn’t possibly have become
wine all in a minute.”

Patience burst into laughter. “But, Miss Beale, it was a miracle anyhow,
wasn’t it? If he could perform a miracle at all it would have been as
easy to make wine out of water as grape juice.”

Miss Beale shook her head emphatically and set her lips. “I _know_ that
the Lord never would have offered wine to anybody; but grape juice is
delightful, and he probably knew it, and they called it wine. That is
all there is to it.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Patience, forgetting the Temperance question, as Miss
Beale turned into a path and walked toward the side entrance of the
First Presbyterian Church, “are we going here?”

“Yes, this is just where we are going. There is a special meeting of the
Y’s and Christian Endeavourers of Mariaville and White Plains and two or
three other places. Ah! I’ve caught you now, you naughty girl.”

Patience turned away her face and frowned heavily. All her old dislike
of religion, almost forgotten during the past two years, surged up above
the impulsion of her fermenting spirit. She felt the old impatience, the
old intolerance.

“Do you want me to go in there?” she asked. “I came to see you.”

“Oh, you’re not going to get out of it,” cried Miss Beale, gayly. “And I
know you better than you know yourself. I know you always wanted to give
yourself to the Lord, only you are too proud.”

Patience stared at her, wondering if she had so far forgotten herself as
to indulge in a little joke at the expense of her idols; but Miss Beale
was looking at her with kind, earnest eyes. Patience laughed, and
shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, I’ll go in to please you; but I hope it won’t be too long, for
I’m horribly hungry.”

“Dear, dear! Why didn’t you come a little earlier? But it won’t be more
than two hours, and then I’ll have a hot luncheon prepared for you.”

She led Patience through the large church parlour and straight up to a
table, lifting a chair as she passed the front row of seats.

“I don’t want to sit here,” whispered Patience, hurriedly; but Miss
Beale pushed her into the chair, and seated herself beside her, at the
back of the table.

“I am going to preside, and you are the guest of honour,” she said.
“Young ladies,” she continued, smiling at the rows of bright and serious
faces, “I am sure you will all be glad to see Patience again. I know she
is glad to see you.”

Patience arose and bowed awkwardly, then sat down and tapped the floor
with her foot. The young women looked surprised and pleased. One and all
smiled encouragingly, sure that she had been converted at last. Many of
the faces were bright with youth and even mischief; others were careworn
and aging. Not one of them but looked happy.

Patience under her calm exterior began to seethe and mutter once more.
Once she almost laughed aloud as she thought of the effect upon these
simple-minded girls if the hell within her were suddenly made manifest.

The meeting opened at once. Miss Beale offered a prayer, in which she
implored that they all might love the Lord the more. Hymns were sung,
the Bible read, and reports by the various secretaries and treasurers.
Then one serious and not unintelligent-looking woman of thirty read a
platitudinous paper beginning: “Some one has said, ‘The time will come
when it will be the proudest boast of every man and woman to say “I am
an American.”’ I say that the time will come when it will be the
proudest boast of every man and woman to say, ‘I am a Christian.’”

All regarded the reader with eyes of affection and approval. Each word
Patience, in her abnormal state of mind, took as a personal insult to
Intellect. She felt furiously resentful that in this Nineteenth Century
with its educational facilities, its libraries full of the achievements
of great masters of thought, there should be so low a standard of
intellectuality in the middle classes. Even the fashionable women,
frivolous as they were, were brighter, and keener to pierce outworn
traditions. They might not be thinkers, but they had a species of
lightning in their brain which rent superstition and gave them
flashlight glimpses of life in its true proportions.

The girls began to give experiences. One had just joined the Y’s, and
she related with tears the story of her struggle between the World and
the Church, and her thankfulness that at last she had been permitted to
decide in favour of the Lord. Patience remembered her as the vapid
daughter of rather wealthy parents who in her own day had been devoted
to society and young men. She was very faded. Many of the girls wept in
sympathy, and Miss Beale mopped her eyes several times.

An extremely pretty girl stood up, a girl with black hair and pale blue
eyes and rich pink colour. Patience regarded her satirically, thinking
what a beauty she would be if properly gowned. Miss Beale, noting her
interest, patted her hand and smiled.

“I just want to say,” began the girl, with deep earnestness, “that every
day of my life I have greater confidence that the Lord loves me and
hears what I ask Him. You know that I write the reports of the Y. W. C.
T. U., and of course I have to get them printed for nothing. So when I
sit down to write them I just ask the Lord to tell me what to say and
how to say it, and all the way to the office I keep asking Him to tell
me what to say to the editor so that he will print it and help our great
cause along. And, girls, he prints it every time, and only yesterday he
said to me: ‘I like your stuff because it’s direct and to the point, no
gush, no rhetoric—it’s plain horse sense.’ Now, girls, you need not
think I say that to compliment myself. I just say it to prove that the
Lord writes those newspaper articles, not I.”

Patience put her handkerchief to her face and shook convulsively. She
bit her lips to keep from laughing aloud; she wanted to scream.

Suddenly she became conscious of a deep murmur. Supposing it to be of
disapproval, she straightened her mouth and dropped her handkerchief;
but her face was scarlet, her eyes full of tears. The girls were leaning
forward, regarding her earnestly. Miss Beale leaned over and placed her
arm about her.

“Speak,” she said softly. “Don’t be afraid.”

“What on earth are you thinking about?” gasped Patience.

“Tell us what is in your heart,” said Miss Beale, in a tremulous voice.

And, “Tell us! Tell us!” came from the girls.

“You don’t know what you are saying,” said Patience, freeing herself
angrily. “Let me go.” She was trembling with excitement. Her head felt
very light. The blood was pounding in her ears. She started to her feet,
meaning to rush to the door; but Miss Beale was too quick for her. She
caught her firmly by the waist and led her to the middle of the space at
the head of the room.

“I know she will speak,” said Miss Beale. “Patience, we all feel our
awful responsibility. If you speak out now, you will be saved. If your
timidity overcomes you, you may go hence and never hear His knock
again.”

“Speak! Speak!” came with solemn emphasis from the Y’s.

“Oh, well, I’ll speak,” cried Patience. “And suppose you hear me out. It
will be only polite, since you have forced me to speak. You have always
misunderstood me. I am by no means indifferent to the God you worship. I
have the most exalted respect and admiration for this tremendous
creative force behind the Universe, a respect so great that I should
never presume to address him as you do in your funny little egoism. Do
you realise that this magnificent Being of whose essence you have not
the most approximate idea, is the Creator, not only of this but of
countless other worlds and systems, and furthermore of the psychic and
physical laws that govern them and of the extraordinary mystery of which
we are a part, and which has its most subtle expression in the Space
surrounding us? And yet you, atoms, pigmies, tiny individual
manifestations of a great correlative force called human nature, you
presume to address this stupendous Being, and stand up and kneel down
and talk to It, to imagine that It listens to your insignificant
wants,—that It writes newspaper articles! Is it Christianity that has
destroyed the sense of humour in its disciples?

“In each of you is a shaft from the great dominating Force—that is
quite true, and it is for you to develop that force—character—and rely
upon it, not upon a spiritual lover, as weak women do upon some
unfortunate man. What good does all this religious sentimentality do
you? Your brains are rotting. You have nothing to talk about to
intelligent men. No wonder the men of small towns get away as soon as
they can, and seek the intelligent women of lower strata. Men are
naturally brighter than women, and girls of your sort deliberately make
yourselves as limited and colourless as you can. Go, make yourselves
companions for men, if you would make the world better, if you must
improve the human race. Study the subjects that interest them, that fill
their life; study politics and the great questions of the day, that you
may lead them to the higher ethical plane on which nature has placed
you. Quit this erotic sentimentalising over an abstract being to whom
you must be the profoundest joke of his civilisation—”

“Hush!” shrieked Miss Beale. For some moments Patience had been obliged
to raise her voice above the angry mutterings of her audience. One or
two were sobbing hysterically. Miss Beale’s cry was the signal for the
explosion of pent-up excitement.

“Go! Go!” cried the girls. “Go out of this church! Blasphemer! Shame!
Shame!”

Patience looked out undaunted upon the sea of flushed angry faces, which
a few moments before had been all peace and love. She shrugged her
shoulders, bowed to Miss Beale, who was staring at her with horrified
eyes in a livid face, and walked toward the door. The girls pressed her
forward, lest she should speak again.

“We have a right as churchwomen to hate you,” cried one, “for we are
told to hate the devil, and you are he incarnate.”

Patience refused to accelerate her steps, but reached the door in a
moment. As she was about to pass out a joyous face was uplifted to hers.
It belonged to a girl still sitting. Her lap was piled with loose sheets
of paper. There was an excited smirch of lead on her cheek. Even as she
raised her head and spoke she continued writing. “That was a corker,”
she whispered, “the biggest story I’ve had in weeks.” It was Miss
Merrien.

                                  XVII

Patience was an early riser, and had usually read the “Day” through
before Beverly lounged downstairs, sleepy and cross and masculine. On
the morning after her day of varied experience she took the newspaper
into the library and read the first page leisurely, as was her habit.
The news of the world still interested her profoundly. Then she read the
editorials, and, later, glanced idly at the headlines of the “stories.”
The following arrested her startled eye:

                      AN EARTHQUAKE IN MARIAVILLE!
                     THE GOOD PEOPLE ARE OUTRAGED!
               A SENSATION BY THE BEAUTIFUL AND BRILLIANT
                          MRS. BEVERLY PEELE!

The story covered two thirds of a column. Patience read it three times
in succession without stopping to comment. It was graphically told, much
exaggerated, and as carefully climaxed as dramatic fiction. And it was
interesting reading. Patience decided that if it had not been about
herself she should have given it more than passing attention. Her beauty
and grace and elegance, her grand air, were described with enthusiasm.
Every possible point of contrast was made to the serious and
unfashionable Y’s.

At first Patience was horrified. She wondered what Mr. and Mrs. Peele
would say. Beverly’s comments were not within the limitations of doubt.

“I’m in for it,” she thought. Then she smiled. She felt the same thrill
she had experienced when the men looked askance at her after her assault
upon her mother. The Ego ever lifts its head at the first caress, and
quickly becomes as insatiable as a child for sweets. Patience glanced at
the article to note how many times her name—in small capitals—sprang
forth to meet her eyes. She imagined Bourke reading it, and Mrs.
Gallatin, and Mrs. Lafarge, and many others, and wondered if strangers
would find it interesting; then, suddenly, she threw back her head and
laughed aloud.

“What fools we mortals be!” she thought. “And the President of the
United States has dozens of paragraphs written about him every day. And
actors and writers are paragraphed _ad nauseam_. If a woman is run over
in the street she has a column, and if she goes to a hotel and commits
suicide, she has two, and is a raving beauty. Rosita is persecuted for
stories. The Ego ought to have its ears boxed every morning, as some
old-fashioned people switch their children. Well, here comes Beverly.”

Her husband entered, and for the first time in many months she sprang to
her feet and gave him a little peck on his cheek. He was so surprised
that he forgot to pick up the newspaper, and followed her at once into
the dining-room. During the meal she talked of his horses and his farm,
and even offered to take a drive with him. He was going to White Plains
to look at some blooded stock which was to be sold at auction, and
promptly invited her to accompany him; but her diplomacy had its limits,
and she declined. However, he went from the table in high good humour.
When she left him in the library, a few moments later, he was arranging
the scattered sheets of the “Day,” without his accustomed comments upon
“the infernal manner in which a woman always left a newspaper.”

Patience went up to her room and wrote a note of apology to Miss Beale.
She was half way through a long letter to Hal when she heard Beverly
bounding up the stair three steps at a time.

“The cyclone struck Peele Manor at 10.25,” she said, looking at the
clock. “Sections of the fair—”

Beverly burst in without ceremony.

“What the hell does this mean?” he cried, brandishing the newspaper. His
dilating nostrils were livid. The rest of his face was almost black.

“Beverly, you will certainly have apoplexy or burst a blood vessel,”
said his wife, solicitously. “Think of those that love you and preserve
yourself—”

“Those that love me be damned! The idea of my wife—_my wife_—being the
heroine of a vulgar newspaper story! Her name out in a headline! Mrs.
Beverly Peele! My God!”

“God was the cause of the whole trouble,” said Patience, flippantly. “I
thought the young women were entirely too intimate with him. The
spectacle conjured of The Almighty with his sleeves rolled up grinding
out copy at five dollars per column was too much for me. I have the most
profound admiration and respect for the Deity, and felt called upon to
defend him—the others seemed so unconscious of insult—”

“This is no subject for a joke,” cried Beverly, who had sworn steadily
through these remarks. “I don’t care a hang if you had a reason or not
for making a public speech—Christ!—it’s enough that you made it, that
your name’s in the paper—my wife’s name! What will my father and mother
say?”

“They will not swear. A few of the Peeles are decently well bred.”

“No one ever gave them cause to swear before. You’ve turned this family
upside down since you came into it. You’ve been the ruin of my life. I
wish to God I’d never seen you.”

“I sincerely wish you hadn’t. What had you intended to make of your life
that I have interfered with?”

“If I’d married a woman who loved me I’d have been a better man.”

“I wonder how many weak men have said that since the world began! You
were twenty-six when I married you, and I cannot see that there has been
any change in kind since, although there certainly is in degree. If you
had married the ordinary little domestic woman, you would have been
happier, but you would not have been better, for you possess neither
soul nor intelligence. But I am perfectly willing to give you a chance
for happiness. Give me my freedom, and look about you for a doll—”

“Do you mean to say that you want a divorce?”

“I think you know just how much I do.”

“Well, you won’t get it—by God! Do you understand that? You’ve no
cause, and you’ll not get any.”

“There should be a law made for women who—who—well, like myself.”

Her husband was incapable of understanding her. “Well, you just remember
that,” he said. “You don’t get a divorce, and you keep out of the
newspapers, or you’ll be sorry,” and he slammed the door and strode
away.

A quarter of an hour after Patience heard the wheels of his cart. At the
same time the train stopped below the slope. A few moments later she saw
Miss Merrien come up the walk. The maid brought up the visitor’s card,
and with it a note from Mr. Field.

    DEAR MRS. BEVERLY [it read],—Forgive me—but you are a woman of
    destiny, or I haven’t studied people sixty years for nothing. I
    chose to be the first—the scent of the old war-horse for news,
    you know. Peele will be furious, but I can’t bother about a
    trifle like that. Just give this young woman an interview, and
    oblige your old friend

                                                          J. E. F.

Patience started to go downstairs, then turned to the mirror and
regarded herself attentively. She looked very pretty, remarkably so, as
she always did when the pink was in her cheeks; but her morning gown was
plain and not particularly becoming. She changed it, after some
deliberation, for a house-robe of pearl grey silk with a front of pale
pink chiffon hanging straight from a collar of cut steel. The maid had
brought her some pink roses from the greenhouse; she fastened one in the
coil of her soft pale hair. Then she smiled at her reflection, shook out
her train, and rustled softly down the stair.

Miss Merrien exclaimed with feminine enthusiasm as she entered the
library.

“Oh, you are the loveliest woman to write about,” she said. “I do a lot
of society work; and I am so tired of describing the conventional
beauty. And that gown! I’m going to describe every bit of it. Did it
come from Paris?”

“Yes,” said Patience, amused at her immediate success. “My mother-in-law
brought it to me last summer—but perhaps you had better not mention
Mrs. Peele in your story.”

“Well, I won’t, of course, if you don’t want me to. I have written the
story about La Rosita for the Sunday ‘Day,’ and I did not hint at your
identity. It made a good story, but not as good as the one about you.
Mr. Field wrote me a note this morning, complimenting me, and told me to
come up here and interview you. I hope you don’t mind very much.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea whether I do or not. How do you do it?”

“Well, you see, I’ll just ask you questions and you answer them, and
I’ll put it all down in shorthand, and then when I go to the office I’ll
thresh it into shape. You can be sure that I won’t say anything that
isn’t pleasant, for I really never admired any one half so much.”

“Very well, you interview me, and then I’ll interview you. I have some
questions to ask also.”

“I’ll tell you anything you like. This story, by the way, is to be in
the Sunday issue on the Woman’s Page. Now we’ll begin. Were you always
an unbeliever? Tell me exactly what are your religious opinions.”

“Oh, dear me! You are not going to write a serious analysis of me?”

“Yes, but I’ll give it the light touch so that it won’t bore anybody. It
is to be called ‘A Society Woman Who Thinks,’ and will be read with
interest all over America.”

“But I am not a society woman.”

“Well, you’re a swell, and that’s the same thing, for this purpose
anyhow. The Gardiner Peeles are out of sight, and I have heard lots of
times how beautifully you entertain in summer and how charmingly you
gown yourself. Tell me first—what do you think of this everlasting
woman question? I hate the very echo of the thing, but we’ll have to
touch on it.”

“Oh, I haven’t given much thought to it, except as a phase of current
history. One thing is positive, I think: we must adjust our individual
lives without reference to any of the problems of the moment,—Womanism,
Socialism, the Ethical Question, the Marriage Question, and all the
others that are everlasting raging. He that would be happy must deal
with the great primal facts of life—and these facts will endure until
human nature is no more. Moreover, however much she may reason, nothing
can eradicate the strongest instinct in woman—that she can find
happiness only through some man.”

“Good,” said Miss Merrien. “I’d have thought the same thing if I’d ever
had time. Now tell me if you have any religion at all.”

“I suppose I should be called an anarchist. Don’t be alarmed: I mean the
philosophical or spiritual anarchist, not these poor maniarchists that
are merely an objectionable variety of lunatics. The religious situation
is this, I think: Jesus Christ does not satisfy the intellectual needs
of the Nineteenth Century. And yet, indisputably, the religionists are
happier than the multiplying scores that could no more continue in the
old delusion than they could worship idols or torture the flesh.
Civilisation needs a new prophet, and he must be an anarchist,—one who
will teach the government of self by self, the government of man’s
nature by will, which in its turn is subservient to the far seeing
brain. Human nature is anarchic in its essence. The child never was born
that was brought to bend to authority without effort. We are still
children, or we should not need laws and governments.”

“Wait till I get that down.”

“Of course these are only individual opinions. I don’t claim any value
for them, and should never have thought of airing them if you hadn’t
asked me. For my part I’m glad I live in this imperfect chaotic age.
When we can all do exactly as we please and won’t even remember how to
want to do anything wrong—Awful!”

“But you said the advanced thinkers needed this new religion to make
them happy.”

“Their happiness will consist in the tremendous effort to reach the
difficult goal. That will take centuries, just as the spiritualised
socialism of Jesus Christ has taken twenty centuries, and only
imperfectly possessed one third of the globe. When anarchy is a cold
hard fact—well, I suspect the anarchists will suddenly discover that
_ennui_ is in their vitals, and will gently yawn each other to death.
Then the tadpoles will begin over again; or perhaps there will then be
mental and moral developments that we in our present limitations cannot
conceive. Haven’t you had enough?”

“No, no. I’ve a dozen questions more.”

Miss Merrien, like all good newspaper reporters, was an amateur lawyer
and a harmless hypnotist. In an hour she had extracted Patience’s views
of society, books, dress, public questions, and the actors in the great
national theatre, the Capitol at Washington.

“Oh, this is magnificent,” she announced, when the pages had been
folded. “Now can I look at the house?”

“We will have luncheon first. No, don’t protest. I am delighted. Mr.
Peele is away for the day, otherwise I fear you would not have had this
interview.”

“Oh, you don’t believe in the submission of wives, then?”

“I’ve never thought much about it,” said Patience, indifferently. “There
is too much fuss made about it all. When a man commands his wife to do a
thing she does not care to do, and when a woman does what she knows will
displease her husband, it is time for them to separate.”

“Oh, that is too simple. It wouldn’t do to reduce the woman question to
a rule of three. What would all the reformers do? And the poor polemical
novelists! Oh, these are the famous portraits, I suppose?”

“You can look at them if the luncheon is bad,” said Patience, as they
took their seats at table. “I’m not a very good housekeeper, although I
actually did take some lessons of Miss Mairs. And sometimes I forget to
order luncheon. I did to-day.”

But the luncheon proved to be a very good one, and Miss Merrien did it
justice, while Patience explained the portraits. Afterward she showed
her guest over the lower part of the house. Then they went back to the
library, and Patience had her interview.

“Tell me exactly how does a woman begin on a newspaper?” she asked.

“Oh, different ones have different experiences,” said Miss Merrien,
vaguely. “Sometimes you have letters, and are put on as a fashion or
society reporter, or to get interviews with famous women, or to go and
ask prominent people their opinion on a certain subject—for a
symposium, you know; like ‘What Would You do if You Knew that the World
was to End in Three Days?’ or, ‘Is Society Society?’ I have written
dozens of symposiums. Sometimes you do free-lance work, just pick up
what you can and trust to luck to catch on. But of course you must have
the nose for news. I was at a matinée one day and sat in front of two
society women. Between the acts they talked about a prominent woman of
their set who was getting a divorce from her husband so quietly that no
newspaper had suspected it. They also joked about the fact that her
lawyer was an old lover. I knew this was a tip, and a big one. I wrote
all the names on my cuff, and before the matinée was over I was down at
the ‘Day’ and had turned in my tip to the City editor. He sent a
reporter to the lawyer to bluff him into admitting the truth. The next
day we had a big story, and after that the editor gave me work
regularly.”

“How much do you make a week?”

“Sometimes forty, sometimes not twenty; but I average pretty well and
get along. Still, when you have to lay by for sickness and vacations,
and put about one half on your back it doesn’t amount to much. You see,
a newspaper woman must dress well, must make a big bluff. If she doesn’t
look successful she won’t be, to say nothing of the fact that she
couldn’t get inside a smart house if she looked shabby. And then she’s
got to eat good nourishing food, or she never could stand the work. Of
course there’s got to be economy somewhere, so I live in a hall bedroom
and make my own coffee in the morning. Still, I don’t complain, for I do
like the work. If I had to go back home I’d ruin the happiness of the
entire family.”

“What do you look forward to?—I mean what ultimate? You don’t want to
be a reporter always, I suppose. Everybody is striving for some top
notch.”

“Oh, maybe I’ll become Sunday editor, or I might fall in with somebody
that wanted to start a woman’s newspaper, or magazine—you never can
tell. There aren’t many good berths for women. Of course there are a
good many very bright newspaper women, and it’s a toss up who goes to
the top.”

“You don’t seem to take matrimony into consideration.”

“Oh, I don’t deny I get so tired sometimes that I’d be only too glad to
have a man take care of me. I guess we all look forward to that, more or
less. I think I’d always work, but not so hard. It would make all the
difference in the world if you knew some one else was paying the bills.
And then, you see, we go to pieces in eight or ten years. A man is good
for hard newspaper work until he’s forty, but we women are made to be
taken care of, and that’s a fact. We take turns having nervous
prostration. I haven’t had it yet, but I’m looking cheerfully forward to
it.”

“Now I want to tell you,” said Patience, “that I am going to be a
newspaper woman.”

“Oh, nonsense, Mrs. Peele! Excuse me, but you belong here. Your rôle is
that of the châtelaine in exquisite French gowns and an air half of
languor, half of pride. You were not made for work.”

“That is very pretty, but I suspect you don’t want to lose me for copy.”

“Well, I don’t deny it. I wish you’d keep the ball rolling, and give me
a story a month.”

“I’m afraid I’ve given you my last. In a week or two I shall be a
châtelaine in a pink and grey gown no longer, but a humble applicant for
work in Mr. Field’s office.”

“Is it possible that you mean it?”

“Do I look as if I were joking?”

“You don’t look unhappy—Pardon me—but—but—does he beat you?”

“Oh, no,” said Patience, laughing outright, “he doesn’t beat me. I have
better grounds for desertion than that. Do you think you would do me a
favour? I shall have to slip away. He would never let me go with a
trunk. I am going to ask you to let me send you a box of things every
few days. That will excite no comment among the servants, as we are
always sending clothes to the poor. May I?”

“Of course you may. I’ll do everything I can to help you. But—I can’t
imagine you out of this environment. Don’t you hate to give it up,—all
this luxury, this ease, this atmosphere?”

“Yes, I like it all. I’m a sybarite, fast enough. But I’ve weighed it
all in the balance, and Peele Manor stays up. I have a hundred dollars
or so, and that will last me for a time. I’ll give it to you to take
care of for me. I never was wealthy, but I have no idea of economy. I
don’t think I should like a hall room though. Are the others so very
expensive?”

“They are if you have a good address, and that’s very important. And you
want to be in a house with a handsome parlour.”

“I have no friends,—none that will come to see me.”

“Oh, you’ll make friends. You’re an awfully sweet woman. I can’t bear to
think—Well, there’s no use saying any more about it. I expect you’re
the sort that knows your own mind. I should like to keep on seeing you a
great lady, but if you can’t be a happy one I suppose you are right.
Well, I’ll stand by you through thick and thin, and I’ll show you the
ropes. Now I must get back to the office and work up my story. Here’s my
address. There’s a spare room on the floor above mine. If you’re in dead
earnest I’d better take it right away; then I can unpack your things and
hang them up. But—but—do you really mean it?”

“Of course I do.”

“You know Mr. Field personally, don’t you?”

“Very well, indeed; and he told me when I was sixteen that he should
make a newspaper woman of me.”

“Oh, well, then, you’ll have a lot of push, and your road won’t be as
hard as some—not by a long shot. About six out of every ten newspaper
women either go to the wall or to the bad. It is a mixture of knack and
pluck as much as brains that carries the favoured minority through. You
have brains and pluck, and you’ll have push, so you ought to get there.
About the knack of course I can’t tell. Good-bye.”

                                 XVIII

The evening mail brought from Mrs. Peele to her son a note which he read
with a rumbling accompaniment, then tossed to Patience.

    “Do you intend to permit your wife to disgrace your family?” it
    read. “If I had my way that abominable paper, the ‘Day,’ should
    never enter this house—nor any other paper that dealt in
    personalities. I literally writhe every time I see my name—your
    father’s honoured name—in the society columns. You may, then,
    perhaps, imagine my feelings when your father handed me the
    ‘Day’ this morning with his finger on that outrageous column. He
    was speechless with wrath, and will personally call Mr. Field to
    account. I am in bed with a violent headache, in consequence,
    and dictating this letter to Honora. But although I deeply feel
    for you, my beloved son, I must _insist_ that you assert your
    authority with your wrong-headed wife and command her to refrain
    from disgracing this family. I don’t wish to reproach you, but I
    cannot help saying that it is _always_ a dangerous experiment to
    marry beneath one. This girl is not one of us, she never can be;
    for, not to mention that we know nothing whatever of her family,
    she comes from that dreadful savage _new_ Western country. In
    spite of the fact that she has been clever enough to
    superficially adapt herself to our ways, I always knew that she
    would break out somewhere—I always said so to Honora. But I
    don’t wish to add to your own sorrow. I know how you, with all
    your proud Peele reserve, must feel. Only, my son, use your
    authority in the future.”

Patience finished this letter with a disagreeable lowering of the brows.
She made no comment, however, but opened a book and refused to converse
with her husband.

On Sunday morning she found three columns on the Woman’s Page of the
“Day” devoted to her beauty, her intellect, her gowns, and her opinions.
It was embellished with a photograph of Peele Manor and a sketch of
herself, which Miss Merrien had evidently made from memory. When Beverly
came down she handed the newspaper to him at once, to read the story
with the raw temper of early morning. She hoped that Mrs. Peele would
read it in similar conditions.

After he had gone through the headlines he let the newspaper fall to the
floor, and stared at her with a face so livid that for a moment she felt
as if looking upon the risen dead. Then gradually it blackened, only the
nostrils remaining white.

“So you deliberately defy me?” he articulated.

“Yes,” she said, watching him narrowly. She thought that he might strike
her.

“You did it on purpose to drive me crazy?”

“I had no object whatever, except that it pleased me to be interviewed.
Understand at once that I shall do exactly as I please in all things.
This is not the country for petty household tyrants. I don’t doubt there
are many men in this world whom I should be glad to treat with deference
and respect if I happened to be married to one of them; but with men
like you there is only one course to take. I have asked you to let me
live abroad. If you consent to this, it may save you a great deal of
trouble in the future; for, I repeat, I shall in all things do exactly
as I choose.”

“We’ll see whether you will or not,” he roared. “You’ll do as I say, or
I’ll lock you up.”

“Oh, you will not lock me up. You are way behind your times, Beverly.
There is no law in the United States to compel me to obey you.”

“I’ll stop your allowance. You’ll never get another cent from me.”

“That has nothing whatever to do with it. Now, I ask you for the last
time, Will you let me travel?”

“No!” he shouted, and he rushed from the room.

                                BOOK IV

Miss Merrien lived in West Forty-fourth Street, near Broadway. Ten days
after her visit to Peele Manor Patience rang the door-bell of the house
that was to be her new home, one of a long impersonal row.

The maid that answered her ring handed her a note from Miss Merrien, and
conducted her up to a hall room on the third floor. Patience closed the
door, and looked about her with the sensation of the shipwrecked. For a
moment she was strongly tempted to flee back to Peele Manor. The room
was about eight feet square, and furnished with a folding-bed, which was
likewise a bureau, and with a washstand, a table, and two chairs. The
furniture and carpet were new, and there were pretty blue and white
curtains on the window. Nevertheless the tiny room with its modern
contrivances was the symbol of poverty and struggle and an entirely new
existence. Her second impulse was to sit down on a chair and cry; but
she set her teeth, and read Miss Merrien’s note instead.

    I am so sorry not to be able to meet you [it read]; but I am a
    slave, you know. Before I was out of bed this morning I received
    an assignment to go to a woman’s club meeting at eleven. But
    I’ll get back in time to go down to the shop with you. Don’t get
    blue—if you can help it. Remember that every woman feels the
    same way when she first makes the break for self-support; and
    that your chances are better than those of most. There’s a
    little restaurant round the corner—the maid will show
    you—where you can get your luncheon. _Au revoir._ I’m so glad
    the sun is out.

                                           ANNA CHETWYNDE MERRIEN.

    P. S. Your clothes are in the closet in the hall. The key is in
    the washstand drawer.

Patience felt in better cheer after reading Miss Merrien’s kindly
greeting, but the day dragged along very heavily. She went out and
bought all the newspapers, and studied them attentively for hints; but
they did not tell her inexperience anything, and after a time she let
them fall to the floor and sat staring at the blank windows opposite.
For the first time doubts assailed her. She had been so full of young
confidence, and pride in her brains and health and courage, that she had
not regarded the issue of her struggle with the world in the light of a
problem; but face to face with the practical details, she felt short of
breath and weak in the knees.

At two o’clock Miss Merrien came in, looking very tired. There were
black scoops under her eyes, and the lines about her mouth were strongly
accentuated. But she smiled brightly as Patience rose to greet her.

“Well, you are here,” she said. “I changed my mind fifty times about
your coming, but on the whole I thought you would. Fortunately I have
nothing on hand for this afternoon. I’ll rest, and then go down with you
to the shop. Oh, I am so tired, my dear. Can I lie down on your bed
awhile?”

“I shall be delighted to learn how to open it,” said Patience, who was
wondering if her fair face was to become scooped and lined.

Miss Merrien deftly manipulated the bed, loosened her frock, and flung
herself full length.

“I spent all day yesterday and half the night tramping over Brooklyn
hunting up facts in the case of that girl who was found dead in a
tenement-house bed in a grand ball gown. A great story that, but it has
done me up. Tell me—how do you feel?”

“Oh, I’m glad I’m here, but I wish it was six months from now.”

“Of course you do. That’s the way we all feel. But you’ll soon swing
into place, and be too busy to think. I do wish you could get work in
the office, so that you could keep regular hours and meals, and not lose
your good looks; but there’s no berth of that sort. I tell you it is a
sad day when a girl under twenty-five sees the lines coming. The
Revolting Sisterhood say that the next century is to be ours; but I
doubt it. Men lighten our burdens a little now, but I’m afraid they’ll
hate us if we worry and supplant them any further. Well, I’m going to
take a nap. Wake me promptly at 3.10.”

She closed her eyes and fell asleep immediately. The lines grew fainter
as she slept, and the hair fell softly about her face. Patience
reflected gratefully that three months of absolute leisure and peace of
mind would give back to the girl all her freshness and rounded contours.
At ten minutes past three she awakened her. Miss Merrien sat up with a
sigh.

“I feel better, though. Cultivate those cat-naps. They refresh you
wonderfully. Now, we’ll go.”

                                   II

They went down town on the Elevated, leaving it at Park Row. Patience
was so much interested in the great irregular mass of buildings
surrounding City Hall Square, at the dense throngs packing the crooked
side streets, at the fakirs with their nonsensical wares, at the
bewildering array of gilt newspaper names on the rows and stories of
polished windows, that she forgot her errand for the moment, and was
nearly run over.

“Yes, this is the heart of New York, sure enough,” assented Miss
Merrien. “All those big buildings over there are on the famous Newspaper
Row. Brooklyn Bridge is just behind. This is the Post Office on the
right, and that flat building in the square is the City Hall. I tell you
when you get down here, the rest of New York, including all the smart
folk, seems pretty insignificant.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Patience, with a sudden sinking of the heart, “there is
the ‘Day’ building.”

“That is our shop. Now, brace up.”

Patience needed the admonition. She forgot City Hall Park. All her
doubts returned, with others in their wake. She knew something of the
snobbery of the world. As Mrs. Beverly Peele she had been an object of
respectful interest to Mr. Field. What would she be as an applicant for
work? True, he had been kind to her when she was a small nobody, but
that might have been merely a caprice.

They climbed up two narrow stairs in an ugly old building, and entered a
large gas-lit room full of desks. Many young men were writing or moving
about; several were in their shirt sleeves.

“This is the City room,” said Miss Merrien, “and these are the
reporters. Those men in that little room there are the editors and
editorial writers. Mr. Field’s room is just beyond. Now send your card
in by this boy. The Chief’s harder to see than the President of the
United States, but I guess he’ll see you.”

Patience gave the boy her card, and at the end of half an hour, during
which she was much stared at by some of the men and totally ignored by
others, the boy returned and conducted her to Mr. Field’s office.

It was a typical editor’s den of the old-fashioned type. A big desk
covered with papers, a revolving chair, and one other chair completed
the furniture. A large cat was walking about, switching its tail. The
floor was bare. The light straggled down between the tall buildings
surrounding, and entered through small windows. It was Mr. Field’s pride
to have the greatest newspaper and the most unpretentious “shop” in the
United States.

He rose as Patience entered, his eyes twinkling.

“Well,” he said, as he handed her the extra chair, “there’s a mighty row
on, isn’t there? Peele has been here, and now we do not speak as we pass
by. But we hadn’t had a good woman sensation for a month. I tried to
explain that to Peele, but it didn’t seem to impress him. I suppose
you’ve come to beg for mercy.”

“No—I haven’t come for that.”

“Why, what is the matter? I never saw you look the least bit rattled
before. You are always the young queen with a court of us old fellows at
your feet. But tell me; you know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

Patience drew a long breath of relief.

“Oh, you make it easier—I’ve been horribly frightened. But I’ll get to
the point—I suppose you’re very busy down here. Can I have ten
minutes?”

He laughed. “We are usually what you might call busy in this office, but
you may have twenty minutes. Take your time.”

“Well, it’s this: I’ve left Peele Manor for good and all, and I want to
be a newspaper woman.”

Mr. Field’s shaggy white brows rushed up his forehead. His black eyes
expanded.

“My God! What did you make such a break as that for?”

“There are many reasons. I can’t give them all. But all the same I’ve
left, and I’m not going back.”

“Well, your reasons must be good, for you had a delightful position, and
you became it. Are you sure you are not acting rashly?”

“I’ve thought and thought and thought about it. I can’t understand why I
didn’t leave before. I suppose my ideas and intentions didn’t
crystallise until I met Miss Merrien. She has been very kind. I sent my
clothes to her by degrees; she engaged a room for me in her house; we
are going to cook together; and I have given her what money I have to
take care of.”

“Well, well, you have acted deliberately. I don’t know that I am so much
surprised, after all, and I’ll say nothing to persuade you to go back. I
respect your courage and independence, and I’ll do all I can. I haven’t
the slightest idea what you can do, but we’ll find out.” He leaned
forward and patted her hand. Patience had one moment of painful
misgiving, but again she had misjudged him. “If you get discouraged,
just remember that the old man at the helm is your friend and won’t let
you go under.”

“I’m sure you’re awfully good,” said Patience, tears of contrition and
gratitude in her eyes. “I knew you would.”

Mr. Field touched a bell. A boy entered.

“If Mr. Steele is still in the office ask him to step here,” said the
chief.

“Steele is the editor of the Evening ‘Day,’” he explained, “and has a
remarkable faculty for discovering other people’s abilities.”

Patience expected to see a man of middle years and business-like
demeanour. She stared in amazement as a young man under thirty entered
and was presented. He was closely built, but held himself carelessly.
His smooth rather square face was very pale, and despite the
irregularity of feature, bore an odd resemblance to the Greek fauns. The
mouth was large and full, the eyes large, dark blue, and very cold. His
fashionable attire accentuated the antiquity of his face and head.

“Mr. Steele,” said Mr. Field, “this is Mrs. Beverly Peele, of whom you
have heard so much lately. She has made up her mind to support herself.
When she was a little girl I told her that I should one day make a
newspaper woman of her, and she has come to hold me to my word—much to
my satisfaction. I put her in your hands, and feel confident you will
make a success of her.”

Patience expected to see a look of blank surprise cross the young
editor’s face, but she did not know the modern newspaper youth. Mr.
Steele could not have displayed less emotion had the new-comer been a
young woman with letters from Posy County, Illinois. He merely bowed to
her, then to his chief. Patience rose at once.

“I won’t keep you,” she said to Mr. Field. “I’ll only thank you again,
and promise to work as hard as Miss Merrien.”

“I haven’t the slightest doubt of your success. Always remember that,”
said Mr. Field. Patience saw Mr. Steele’s eyebrow give a slight
involuntary jerk; but it was immediately controlled, and he bowed her
through the door.

“We had better go upstairs to the evening room,” he said. “There is no
one there at present.”

Patience followed him up a precipitous stairway into a walled-off
section of the composing-room.

“Sit down,” he said politely, but Patience for the first time in her
life felt terrified and humble. This young man, of whom she had never
heard before, had the air of a superior being, omnipotent in her
destiny. His manner conveyed that he was not one whit impressed by the
fact that she had stepped down from the Sacred Reservation, took not the
faintest interest in her as a pretty woman. She was merely a young
person particularly recommended by his chief, and as such it was his
duty to give her consideration.

He took a chair opposite her own, and she felt as if those classic
guileless eyes were exploring her innermost brain.

“What can you do?” he asked coldly.

“Oh, nothing,” she said desperately, “absolutely nothing. I suppose you
feel like remarking that the ‘Day’ is not a kindergarten.”

“Well, it certainly is not. Nevertheless, as Mr. Field thinks that you
have ability, and wishes you to write for his paper, I, of course, shall
do all I can to abet him. I shall begin by giving you a few words of
advice. Have you a good memory; or should you prefer to write them
down?”

He spoke very slowly, as if he had a deep respect for the value of
words.

“I have read a great deal,” said Patience, proudly, “and my memory is
very good indeed.”

There was a faint twitching of one corner of Mr. Steele’s mouth, but he
continued in the same business-like tone:—

“Read the ‘Day’ through carefully, morning and evening. Observe the
style in which facts are presented, and the general tone and atmosphere
of the paper. Cultivate that general style, not your own. Remember that
you are not on this newspaper to make an individual reputation, but to
become, if possible, a unit of a harmonious whole, and to give the
public the best news in the style to which this newspaper has accustomed
it. When you are sent on an assignment remember that you are to gather
facts—facts. Keep your eyes open, and cultivate the faculty of
observation for all it is worth. When you have gathered these facts put
them into as picturesque a shape as you choose—or as you can. But no
rhetoric, no rhapsodies, no flights, no theories. If the facts admit of
being treated humorously, treat them in that way, by all means,—that
is, if you can imitate a man’s humour, not a woman’s flippancy. A good
many women can. And never forget that it must not be your humour but the
inherent humour of the subject. Be concise. When you feel disposed to
say a thing in ten words say it in five. That is all I can think of at
present. Be here at eight o’clock to-morrow, and I will give you an
assignment.”

He rose, and Patience felt herself dismissed. She sat for a minute
looking at him with angry eyes. Not even in the early days of her
married life had she been so patronised as by this unknown young man.
She felt as if he had plucked her individuality out with his thumb and
finger and contemptuously tossed it aside.

“Is anything the matter?” he asked indifferently, although one corner of
his mouth twitched again.

“No!” Patience sprang to her feet and ran down the stair, at the
imminent risk of breaking her neck. Miss Merrien was waiting for her.

“Why, what on earth is the matter?” she exclaimed.

“Oh, let us get out into the air! Come, and then I’ll tell you.”

But they were not able to converse until seated in the Elevated Train.
Then Patience exclaimed with an accent of cutting sarcasm,—

“Who, _who_ is Mr. Steele?”

Miss Merrien smiled broadly. “Oh, I see. Did he patronise you? You must
get used to editors. Remember they are monarchs in a small way, and love
their power—the more because their dominion is confined within four
walls. But Morgan Steele is one of the kindest men in the office. I’d
rather work for him than for any one. He puts on an extra amount of side
on account of his youth, but the reporters all adore him. He won’t keep
an incompetent man two days, and during those two days the man’s life is
a burden; but he is always doing good turns to the boys he likes. When
you know him you’ll like him.”

“I think him an insolent young cub, and if I didn’t hate to bother Mr.
Field I’d refuses to write for him. What on earth is a youngster like
that in such a responsible position for?”

“Oh, my dear, this is the young man’s epoch. Just cast your eyes over
the United States and even England, and think of the men under thirty
that are editors and authors and special writers and famous artists and
leaders of enterprises. They are burnt out at forty, but they begin to
play a brilliant part in their early twenties. I heard a man say the
other day of another man who is only twenty-six and supposed to be
ambitious: ‘Well, he’d better hump himself. He’s no chicken.’ A man
feels a failure nowadays if he hasn’t distinguished himself before
thirty.”

“They are certainly distinguished for conceit.”

“Oh, when you get used to newspaper men you’ll like them better than any
men you’ve known. What is objectionable is counteracted by their brains
and their intimate and wonderfully varied knowledge of life. A newspaper
man who is at the same time a gentleman, is charming. It is true they
have no respect for anybody nor anything. They believe in no woman’s
virtue and no man’s honesty—under stress. Their kindness—like Morgan
Steele’s—is half cynical, and they look upon life as a thing to be
lived out in twenty years—and then dry rot or suicide. But no men know
so well how to enjoy life, know so thoroughly its resources, or have all
their senses so keenly developed, particularly the sense of humour,
which keeps them from making fools of themselves. No man can feel so
strongly for a day, and that after all is the philosophy of life. All
this makes them very interesting, although, I must confess, I should
hate to marry one. It seems to be a point of honour among them to be
unfaithful to their wives; however, I imagine, the real reason is that
no one woman has sufficient variety in her to satisfy a man who sees
life from so many points of view daily that he becomes a creature of
seven heads and seven hearts and seven ideals. Now, tell me all about
your interviews with Mr. Field and Morgan Steele.”

Patience told the tale, and Miss Merrien raised her eyebrows at its
conclusion. “Well, you need not lie awake nights trembling for the
future. You are in for push and no mistake. If the Chief has taken you
under his wing in that fashion you can be sure that Morgan Steele will
work you for all that is in you, whether he wants to or not.” Suddenly
she laughed, and leaning over looked quizzically at Patience. “You vain
girl,” she said, “you are piqued because Morgan Steele did not succumb
as other men—including Mr. Field—have done to your beauty and charm.
But I’ll tell you this, by way of consolation: it is a point of
etiquette—or prudence—among editors never to pay the most commonplace
attentions to, or manifest the slightest interest in the women of the
office. It would not only lead to endless complications, but would
impair the lordlings’ dignity: in other words, they would be guyed. So
cheer up. You haven’t gone off since this morning. I see three men
staring at you in true Elevated style.”

Patience laughed. “Well, I will admit that I have no respect whatever
for a man that is unappreciative of the charms of woman. I’d like to
give Mr. Steele a lesson, but I won’t. I wouldn’t condescend. I’ll be as
business-like as he is. He knew why I was angry to-day, I am afraid, but
he won’t see me angry again. Why is Mr. Field so much nicer?”

“Oh, he owns the paper.”

Patience’s indignation had worn itself out by bedtime. When Miss Merrien
left her for the night she locked her door and spread her arms out with
an exultant sense of freedom. She seemed to feel the ugly weight of the
past two years fall from her, and to hear it go clattering down the
quiet streets. Her sense of humour and the liveliness of her mind had
saved her from morbidity at any time, although she had not escaped
cynicism. She now felt that she could turn her back squarely on the
past, that she was not a woman whose mistakes and dark experiences would
corrode the brain and spirit, ruining present and future. She could not
make the same mistake again; and it was better to have made it in early
youth when the etchery of experience eats the copper of the ego more
lightly. The future seemed to her to be full of infinite possibilities.
She could be her own fastidious dreaming idealising self again. New
friends dotted the dusk like stars. She felt ten years away from the man
to whom she had nodded a careless good-bye that morning. A vague
pleasurable loneliness assailed her, the instinct of plurality. Then she
laughed suddenly and went to bed.

The next morning, at eight o’clock, after a cup of black coffee to
stiffen her nerves, she presented herself in the evening room of the
“Day.” Two men and a woman were writing at little tables. Mr. Steele in
his shirt sleeves was at his desk, reading copy. She sat down, priding
herself that her face was as impassive as his own. In a few moments he
called her to his desk.

“You have read in the newspapers, I suppose, of this crusade of Dr.
Broadhead, the fashionable Presbyterian clergyman, against the voting of
Immigrants?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Well, he is doing his best to get the women of New York to help him,
and is holding his first meeting this morning in Cooper
Union—eleven-thirty. One of our best men will go to report the
addresses, but I want you to go and sit in the audience, and observe how
many fashionable women are there, what they wear, and what degree of
interest they appear to take in the proceedings. Above all, I want you
to keep your eyes and ears open for any significant fact which may or
may not appear. It usually does. That is all.—Well, what do you want?”
This to the office boy.

Patience went slowly downstairs, feeling as if she had been sent out to
discover the North Pole with a chart and a row-boat. When she reached
Cooper Union, two hours later, and found herself for the moment an
integer of one of the many phases of current history, she forgot the
agonising travail of the “news sense,” and became so deeply interested
that she observed the many familiar faces abstractedly, and, later,
“faked” their costumes.

She hurried to her room before the meeting was over and wrote her
“story.” It concluded thus:—

    “Some four hundred women were present, at half-past eleven in
    the morning; the hour indicating that they were women of
    leisure, which in its turn presupposes the large measure of
    education and refinement, and a general superiority over the
    toiling millions. They were very enthusiastic. When Dr.
    Broadhead entered the applause was deafening. They interrupted
    him every few minutes. When he sat down, and Mr. Lionel Chambers
    came forward he, too, was warmly welcomed, for his popularity is
    well established. He smiled, and began something like this:—

    “‘Ladies: Dr. Broadhead has left me little to say. I being
    somewhat versed in politics, however, in other words, in hard
    fighting with the enemy, he believes that I may be able to give
    you a little useful advice.’ (Applause and cries of ‘Yes! Yes!’)
    ‘Now, ladies, there are several points upon which I must ask
    your attention.’ (No man ever had more serious attention.) ‘I
    will check them off in detail. First of all, ladies, my advice
    to you is to—’ (every ear went forward)—‘is—to—pray.’

    “He paused. There was an intense and disgusted silence, with the
    exception of one or two muttered exclamations of impatience.
    _There were just four hundred women in the city of New York who
    were beyond that sort of thing._ He saw his mistake at once,
    blundered on confusedly, recovered himself, and gave them much
    sound, practical advice which they received with every mark of
    gratitude.”

She hastened down to the office, her eyes shining with the proud delight
of authorship. Steele looked busier than any one she had ever seen, but
he asked sharply:

“Got anything?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see it. Skip the descriptive part.”

She handed him the latter part of her story, and he ran his eye hastily
over it. A gleam shot from his eyes, but he compressed his lips.

“That’s not bad—but I don’t know that I dare print it. The religious
hypocrisy of this country beats that of England, strange as it may
appear. However, I’ll think it over. Come down to-morrow morning.”

The article was printed, and the result was a shower of protesting
letters from clergymen and religious women. Patience was sent to
interview a number of representative women, of various spheres of life,
on the subject, and found herself fairly launched. She hardly had time
to realise whether she liked the work or not, but when she was not too
tired, concluded that she did. As this phase wore off, she developed
considerable enthusiasm, and felt her bump of curiosity enlarge.

She practically forgot the past, except to wonder occasionally that she
heard nothing from the Peeles. Upon her arrival in New York, on the
morning of her departure from Peele Manor, she had mailed a note to
Beverly, which merely announced that she had left him, never to return.
He was the sort of a man to put the matter in the hands of a detective,
but so far—and the weeks were growing into a month—he had given no
sign of any kind. She cared little for the cause of his silence,
however; she was too thankful for the fact. Occasionally Steele gave her
a brief word of praise, and she was more delighted than she had ever
been at the admiration of man.

                                   IV

Patience sprang out of bed, full of the mere joy of living. She felt as
happy as a wild creature of the woods, and for no reason whatever. She
longed for Rosita’s voice that she might carol, and wondered if it were
possible that she had ever thought herself the most miserable of women.
The small room would not hold her, and she went out and took a long walk
in the sharp white air; it was Sunday, and she was not obliged to go to
the office.

When she returned, the servant told her that a gentleman awaited her in
the parlour. She turned cold, but went defiantly in. The visitor was Mr.
Field, and the revulsion of feeling was so great, and her exuberance of
spirits so undiminished, that she ran forward, threw her arms about his
neck, and kissed him.

“I am so happy I must kiss some one,” she said, “and after all you are
the right person, for it is owing to you that I am happy.”

“Well! well!” he said laughing, “I am delighted; and also relieved that
you did not take it into your head to do that down at the office. I’ve
just dropped in to ask after your health and to say good-bye. How do you
stand it?”

“Oh, I am well. I never felt so well. I get tired, but I sleep it off. I
made twenty-five dollars last week, and I celebrated the occasion by
coming home in a cab. Oh, I can tell you I feel all made over, and Peele
Manor seems prehistoric.”

“You always did live at a galloping rate mentally. You are doing first
rate—not but what you’ll do better a year from now. There’s pulse in
your stuff. Keep your enthusiasm as long as you can. Nothing takes its
place. Here’s something for you.”

A messenger boy had entered with a note.

“For me?”

“For Mrs. Beverly Peele.”

“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, “it has come. This is from Mr. Peele. Do let
me read it—I can’t wait.”

She tore the envelope open and read hastily:—

    DEAR PATIENCE,—On the night of the day of your departure from
    Peele Manor, my son came up to us in a distracted condition. He
    had also contracted the grippe. The combination of disorders
    produced delirium and serious illness. For that reason and
    others we have not endeavoured to communicate with you. In fact,
    I only ascertained yesterday that you were working for Mr.
    Field, who I consider has further betrayed my friendship in
    associating himself with you in your insubordination.

    Of course you are at liberty to act as you choose. The laws of
    this country are wretchedly inadequate regarding the authority
    of the husband. But one thing I insist upon: that you call upon
    us and make a definite statement of what you purpose to do. If
    you have repented and wish to return to us, we will overlook
    this wretched mistake. If you intend definitely to leave your
    husband and to follow the disgraceful life of a reporter on a
    sensational newspaper, you owe it to us to come here in person
    and define your position. The family with which you have allied
    yourself, my dear young woman, is not one to be dismissed with a
    note of three lines.

    I particularly request that you call at three o’clock this
    afternoon.

                                                   Yours truly
                                                  GARDINER PEELE.

Patience handed the note to Mr. Field, who read it with much interest.

“Go by all means,” he said; “otherwise they will annoy you with petty
persecutions, and Beverly will haunt the ‘Day.’ Keep up all your pluck,
and remember that this is a free country, and that they can compel you
to do nothing you do not wish to do. You are mistress of the situation,
and can call upon me for proof that you are supporting yourself
adequately.”

“Oh, I don’t want to go. I never want to look at one of them again. I’d
just managed to forget them all.”

“But you must go. It would look cowardly if you didn’t; and, when you
come to think of it, you certainly do owe them some sort of explanation.
Poor Peele! he must have actually suffered at being treated in such
cavalier fashion.”

“Oh, well, I’ll go! I’ll go! But I wish I’d never seen them.”

“You don’t look at all pretty with that face, and I shall run. By the
way, I came to tell you that I start for Paris to-morrow to join my
wife, who has been on the other side for some months. Otherwise she
would have called before this. Steele will take care of you.”

                                   V

When Patience went up to her room she slammed the door, closed the
window violently, then sat down and beat a tattoo on the floor with her
heels. Her spirits were still high, but cyclonic. She would willingly
have smashed things, and felt no disposition to sing.

Nevertheless she rang the bell of the house in Eleventh Street at three
o’clock. The butler bowed solemnly, and announced that the family
awaited her in the library. Patience, piqued that they were assured of
her coming, was half inclined to turn back, then shrugged her shoulders,
walked down the hall, and through the dining-room to the library in the
annex.

The afternoon sun irradiated the cheerful room, but Beverly, with sunken
eyes and pallid face, sat huddled by the fire. He sprang to his feet as
Patience entered, then turned away with a scowl and sank back in his
chair. His mother sat opposite. She merely bent her head to Patience,
then turned her solicitous eyes to her son’s face. Honora came forward
and kissed her sweetly. Mr. Peele did not shake hands with her, but
offered her a chair by the long table. Patience took it, and experienced
a desire to laugh immoderately. They had the air of a Court of Inquiry,
and appeared to regard her as a delinquent at the bar.

Mr. Peele sat in his revolving chair, tipped a little back. He had
crossed his legs and leaned his elbows on the arms of the chair,
pressing his finger tips lightly together.

“Now,” he said coldly, “we are ready to hear you.”

“I have nothing in particular to say. I gave you fair warning, and you
refused to listen, or to let me go abroad and so avoid publicity. I
therefore took the matter in my own hands and went.”

“You ignore your duty to your husband; your marriage vows?”

“There is only one law for a woman to acknowledge, and that is her self
respect.”

“The husband that loves you is entitled to no consideration?”

“Not when he exercises none himself. I refuse to admit that any human
being has the right to control me unless I voluntarily submit myself to
that control.”

“Are you aware that you are uttering the principles of anarchy?”

“Well, the true anarchists of this world are not the bomb throwers. When
a man and woman are properly married there is no question of authority
or disobedience; but a woman is a common harlot who lives with a man
that makes her curse the whole scheme of creation.”

Honora lifted a screen and hid her face. Beverly muttered inaudible
remarks. Mrs. Peele lifted her eyebrows and curled her mouth. Mr. Peele
moved his head slowly back and forth.

“I shall not attempt to contradict any of your remarkable theories,” he
said. “It is apparent that you are imbued with all the pernicious
thought of the time. I am thankful that it is not my destiny to live
among the next generation of women. Will you kindly tell me how you
should have acted in this matter if you had had children?”

“Oh, I don’t know! I have thought of that. No woman should have a child
until she has been married three years. By that time she would know
whether or not she had made a mistake.”

“And what shall you do if you are unable to support yourself?”

“Starve. No one has a right to live that the world has no use for, that
can give the world nothing. Man’s chief end is not bread and butter. If
I can give the world anything it will be glad to give me a living in
return. If I am a failure I’ll walk out of existence as quietly as I
altered my life. But I haven’t the slightest doubt of my ability to take
care of myself.”

Mr. Peele pressed his lips together. The old man and the young woman
regarded each other steadily, the one with malevolence in his eye, the
other with defiance in hers. In that moment Mr. Peele hated her, and she
knew it. She had made him feel old and a component part of the decaying
order of things, while she represented the insolent confidence of youth
in the future.

“Women make too much fuss,” continued Patience. “If they don’t like
their life why don’t they alter it quietly, without taking it to the
lecture platform or the polemical novel? If they don’t like the way man
governs why don’t they educate their sons differently? They can do
anything with the plastic mind. I am sure it could be proved that most
corrupt politicians and bad husbands had weak or careless mothers. If
the men of a country are bad you can be sure the women are worse—”

Beverly sprang to his feet, overturning his chair. “Damn it!” he cried.
“You can talk all you like, but you are mine and I’ll have you.”

Patience turned and fixed her angry eyes on his face. “Oh, no, you will
not. Your father will tell you that I am quite free.”

Mr. Peele gave a short dry laugh. “She has the best of it,” he said.
“You cannot compel her to return to you, and she has the air of one who
has tasted of the independence of making money—”

“Then I’ll dog her steps. I’ll make life hell for her—”

“You will do nothing of the sort, sir. Much as I disapprove of this
young woman’s course, she has in me an unwilling abettor. I shall not
have my domestic affairs made food for the newspapers and their hordes
of vulgar readers. Field would take up her cause and hound me to my
grave. You will keep quiet, and in the course of time get a divorce of
which no one will be the wiser until you marry again. If the gossip does
not get into the papers it will not rise above a murmur. If you add to
my annoyance I shall turn you out of Peele Manor and cut you off without
a cent. You will not pretend that you can support yourself.”

Patience rose. “If you have nothing more to ask I shall go,” she said.
“Beverly can bring his suit as soon as he chooses. It will go by
default.”

Beverly flung off his mother’s restraining arm and rushed forward. “You
shall not go!” he cried.

“Don’t touch me!” cried Patience; but before she could reach the door
Beverly had caught her in his arms. Excitement gave him strength. He
held her with hard muscles and kissed her many times.

The ugly temper she had kept under control broke loose. She lifted her
hand and struck him violently on the mouth. Her face too was convulsed,
but with another passion. She felt as if the past month had been
annihilated.

“Will you let me go?” she gasped. “Oh, how I hate you!” Then as he
kissed her again, “I could kill you! I could kill you!” She flung
herself free, and shaking with passion faced the scandalised family.

“You had better keep him out of the way,” she said. “Do you know that
once I nearly killed my own mother?”

                                   VI

Patience slept little that night. Her head ached violently. When she
presented herself at the office Steele sent her to report a morning
lecture. It was dull, and she fell asleep. When she returned to the
office Steele happened to be alone.

“I have no report,” she said. “I fell asleep. That is all I have to
say.”

For a few seconds he stared at her, then turned on his heel. In a moment
he came back. “The next time you do that,” he said, “hunt up the
reporter of some other newspaper and get points from him. First-class
reporters always stand in together. Here’s a good story badly written
that has come up from Honduras. Take it home and revamp it, and let me
have it to-morrow.”

“You are awfully good. I thought you would tell me to go, and I
certainly deserve to.”

“You certainly do, but we won’t discuss the matter further.”

That was an unhappy week for Patience, and she lost faith in her star. A
great foreign actress, whom she was sent to interview, haughtily refused
to be seen, and the next morning capriciously sent for a reporter of the
“Eye,” the hated rival of the “Day.” She was put on the trail of a
fashionable scandal and failed to gather any facts. She was sent to
interview a strange old woman, supposed to have a history, who lived on
a canal boat, and became so interested in the creature that she forgot
all about the “Day,” and did not appear at Mr. Steele’s desk for three
days. When she did he looked sternly at her guilty face, although the
corners of his mouth twitched.

“I’m delighted to see you have not forsaken us,” he said sarcastically.
“May I ask if the canal boat woman quite slipped your memory?”

“N-o-o. I have been there ever since.”

“Indeed?” His ears visibly twitched. “That alters the case. Did you get
the story out of her?”

Patience looked at him steadily for a moment, then dropped her eyes.

“There is nothing to tell,” she answered.

Steele sprang to his feet.

“Come out here,” he said. He led her into a corner of the
composing-room, and they sat down on a bench.

“Now tell me,” he said peremptorily. “What have you heard? You have news
in your eye. I see it.”

“I have nothing to tell.”

“Suppose you tell the truth. You have the story, and you won’t give it
up. Why not?”

“Well—you see—she confided in me—she said I was the only woman who
had given her a decent word in twenty years; and if I told the story she
would be in jail to-morrow night. Do you think I’d be so low as to tell
it?”

“Sentimentality, my dear young woman, is fatal to a newspaper reporter.
Suppose the entire staff should go silly; where would the ‘Day’ be?”

“It might possibly be a good deal more admirable than it is now.”

“We won’t go into a discussion of theory _v._ practice. I want that
story.”

“You won’t get it.”

“Indeed.” He looked at her with cold angry eyes. “The trouble is that
you have not been made to feel what the discipline of a newspaper office
is—”

Patience leaned forward and smiled up audaciously into his face. “You
would do exactly the same thing yourself,” she said; “so don’t scold any
more. I admit that you frighten me half to death, but all the same I
know that you would never send a poor old woman to prison—not to be
made editor-in-chief.”

He reddened, and looked anything but pleased at the compliment. “Do you
know that you have just said that I am a jay newspaper man?” he asked.

But Patience only continued to smile, and in a moment he smiled back at
her, then, with an impatient exclamation, left her and returned to his
desk.

                                  VII

Two months later Steele asked her to come to the office at six o’clock,
an hour at which the evening room was empty, and suggested that she
should give up reporting, and start a column of paragraphs.

“I should like it better, of course,” said Patience, after he had fully
explained the requirements of the new department. “I was going to tell
you that I _would not_ go to that Morgue again.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t? Well, you stood it rather longer than I thought you
would.”

“And I’m tired of interviewing insolent conceited people. Oh, by the
way, I should thank you for all these nice things you’ve just said to
me.”

He dropped his business-like manner suddenly. “How do you stand it?” he
asked. Then in reply to her look of surprise: “Oh, you know, the Chief,
when he went away, told me to look out for you.”

Patience immediately became the charming woman accustomed to the homage
of man. Steele’s pre-eminence was gone from that moment.

“I am remarkably well, thank you, considering how you have bullied
me—and I can tell you that I did not fancy at all being ordered about
by such an infant.”

“Oh! Thanks! But when a man’s too polite he doesn’t get anything done
for him—not in this business. And is it a crime to be an editor before
you are thirty?”

“Oh, you have reason to be proud of yourself.”

“You mean that I have the big head. Well, that is the disease of the
age, you know. It would never do for a newspaper man to get a reputation
for eccentricity. You’ll have it yourself inside of six months if these
paragraphs are a success.”

“Never! I scorn to be so unoriginal.”

“Well, we’ll encourage your sentiments, and keep you as the office
curio; but I didn’t really bully you, did I?”

“Oh, I’ll admit that you were kinder than I deserved, once in a while:
when I fell asleep at the lecture, for instance.”

He laughed heartily. “That was the richest joke. There was absolutely
nothing to say to you. If you only stood at the end of a long
perspective of this business and could fully appreciate the humour of
that situation! An experienced reporter, if he couldn’t have lied out of
it, or borrowed news, would never have shown up. You looked like a
naughty child expecting to have its ears boxed.”

“Oh, yes, Miss Merrien guyed me for a whole week; I know all about that
now. And now that you’ve come down off your pedestal I’ll thank you for
all your patience and good training. If I’ve learned to write I owe it
to your blue pencil; and I don’t need to be told by Miss Merrien that
you’ve saved me from a great deal of hard work.”

He smiled charmingly. There were times when he looked like an old man
with the mask of youth; to-day he looked a mere boy. “Oh, any one would
do as much for you, even if the Chief hadn’t given orders. You are an
unusual woman, you know. You proved that—but, of course, I have no
right to speak to you of that.” He stood up suddenly and held out his
hand. “Well, be good to yourself,” he said. “If you feel yourself
breaking, take a rest.”

“I wonder,” she thought, as she went downstairs, “if that young man
knows he betrayed the fact that he has been thinking a good deal about
me? He certainly is an interesting youth, and I should like to know him
better.”

Patience did not find her paragraphs as easy as she expected. It was one
thing to work on a given idea, and another to supply idea and execution
both; but after a time her sharpened brain grew more magnetic and life
fuller of ideas than of lay figures. The men in the office frequently
gave her tips, and one clever young reporter, who worshipped her from
afar, fell into the daily habit of presenting her with a slip of
suggestions.

Her choicest paragraphs were usually edited by Steele’s ruthless hand,
and now and again she was moved to wrath. Upon such occasions Mr. Steele
merely smiled, and she was forced to smile in return or retire with the
sulks.

                                  VIII

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.”

                                   IX

When the hot days and nights of summer came Patience did not find
routine and the hunt as fascinating sport as when the electric thrill of
cooler seasons was in the air. Her paragraphs acquired some reputation,
and her mind grew tense in the effort to keep them up to a high
standard, and to prepare at least one surprise a day. She grew thin and
nervous, and began to wonder what life and herself would be like five
years hence. Mr. Field and Steele helped her as much as they dared, and
she managed to make about fifty dollars a week: her success gave Mr.
Field the excuse to pay her special rates. It never occurred to her to
give up, and she assured Hal that she would have nervous prostration
four times a year before she would return to Peele Manor.

There were times when she passionately longed for the isolation of a
mountain top. Nature had been part of her very individuality for all the
years of her life until this last, and a forested mountain top alone was
the antithesis of Park Row. She sometimes had a whimsical idea that her
grey matter was becoming slowly modelled into a semblance of that famous
precinct. She loved it loyally; but the isolation of high altitudes sent
their magnetism to another side of her nature. She was getting farther
and farther away from herself in the jealous absorption of her
work,—the skurrying practical details of her life. She felt that she
could no longer forecast what she should do under given circumstances,
that something in her was slowly changing. What the result would be she
could not predict; and she craved solitude and the opportunity to study
herself out.

In August Mrs. Field took her to her house in the Berkshire hills.
Although she had no solitude there, she returned much refreshed, and did
good work all winter. Steele she never saw outside of the office, but he
managed to treat her with a certain knightliness, and she lay awake,
occasionally, thinking about him. Hard work and the practical side of
life had disposed of a good deal of her romance, but she was still given
to vagaries. Steele’s modernity fascinated her. No other epoch but this
extraordinary last quarter of the nineteenth century could have produced
him.

She was a great favourite in the office. Again a thaw had succeeded a
second glacier period, induced by entire change of environment, and she
liked nearly everybody she knew, and became a most genial and expansive
young woman. She often laughed at herself, and concluded that she would
never strike the proper balance until she fell in love (if she ever
did), when the large and restless currents of her nature would unite and
find their proper destination. She had no “weird experiences.” Her
abounding feminity appealed to the chivalry of the gentlemen among whom
she was thrown, and she was clever enough not to flirt with them, to
treat them impartially as good comrades. The second-class men detested
her, and were not conciliated: the underbred newspaper man touches a
lower notch of vulgarity than any person of similar social degree the
world over.

One morning she awoke about four o’clock,—that is, her mind awoke; her
body was still too full of sleep to move to the right or left. It was
one of her favourite sensations, and she lay for a time meditating upon
the various pleasures, great and small, which are part of man’s
inheritance.

Suddenly she became conscious that it was raining. She had moved into a
back room on the second floor. Beside one window was a tin roof upon
which the rain poured with heavy reiterance. In the back yard was a
large ailanthus tree which lifted itself past her windows to the floor
above. A light wind rustled it. The rain pattered monotonously upon its
wide leaves, producing a certain sweet volume of sound.

It was long since she had listened to rain in the night. It was
associated in her mind with the vague sweet dreams of girlhood and with
her life in Carmel Valley. She had loved to wander through the pine
woods when the winter rains were beating through the uplifted arms,
swirling and splashing in the dark fragrant depths. It said something to
her then, she hardly knew what, nor when it roared upon the roof of the
old farmhouse, or flung itself through the windows of Carmel tower, as
she and Solomon huddled close to the wall.

But when it had beaten upon the roof of her little room in Miss
Tremont’s house it had sung the loneliness of youth into her soul,