“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.”