V
In August the girls went to Newport, and Patience became very tired of her mother-in-law. May returned engaged to a wealthy Cuban, who had been dancing attendance on her blondinitude for some months past, and Mrs. Peele became so amiable that she forgot to lecture her daughter-in-law or irritate her with the large vigilance of her polaric eyes. The girls left again for Lenox and Tuxedo. On the first of January the family moved to their town house for the winter.
Patience was alone with her husband.
During the first three days of this new connubial solitude it snowed heavily. Beverly could not ride nor drive, and wandered restlessly between the stable and the library, where his wife sat before the blazing logs.
There were some two thousand volumes at Peele Manor. Patience had had no time to read since her marriage, but on the morning of the family’s departure she made for the library, partly in self defence, partly with pleasurable anticipation. She hoped that Beverly would succumb to the charms of the stable, where there were many congenial spirits and a comfortable parlour; but she had barely discovered Heine’s prose and had read but ten pages of the “Reisebilder,” when the door opened, and he came in. She merely nodded, and went on reading. She was barely conscious of his presence, for Heine is a magician, and she was already under his spell.
“Well, you might shut up your book and talk to me,” said Beverly, pettishly, flinging himself into a chair opposite her. “This is a nice way to treat a fellow on a stormy day.”
“Oh, you read too,” murmured Patience.
“No, I will not. I want to talk to you.”
Patience closed the book over her finger and looked at him impatiently. Then an idea occurred to her, and she spoke with her usual impulsiveness.
“Look, Beverly,” she said, “you and I have to spend many months alone together, and if we are to make a success of matrimony we must be companions, and to be companions we must have similar tastes. Now I’ll make a bargain with you: I’ll try to like horses if you’ll try to like books. On pleasant days I’ll ride and drive with you, and when it storms we’ll read together here in the library. I am sure you will like it after a time. If you find it tiresome to read to yourself I’ll read aloud. I don’t mind, and then we can talk it over.”