Camille de Vere had a jealous passion for the boy she had married that drove her into excesses of rage without reason. Added to this was a distrust of his love, a horror lest he had wedded her from a mercenary purpose alone, for with all her faults she was quite free from vanity. She hated her peculiar type of beauty, and she would not permit flattery. She believed it was addressed to the heiress, not the woman. Proud, jealous, despotic, she yet underrated her own attractions, and made herself wretched in consequence.
The bitterest taunt, the one that cut most deeply into the sensitive spirit of Norman de Vere, was one that she only ventured upon in the most towering flights of rage.
“You never loved me! You could not have cared for a woman thirteen years older than yourself, and with red hair. You married me for my money, and now you are trying to break my heart so that you may enjoy it without incumbrance!” she would cry out, coarsely; and all his protestations would be useless until she relented of herself, touched by his white face of misery. Then she would atone after her fashion by intervals of almost slavish devotion, and by costly gifts, trying to buy the forgiveness she was ashamed to beg.
Norman’s mother knew in her heart that by her ambition and her adroit management she had brought about this misery, but she dared not utter her repentance aloud. She knew that she had to remain perfectly neutral, or her rich daughter-in-law would find means to separate her from the son she idolized.
When she had heard Norman’s story, her motherly heart thrilled with indignation at the false and unjust charge brought against her idolized son.
Angry words rushed to her lips, but she crowded them back. She must not foment strife between husband and wife. The least she could do to atone for her share in their misery was to act the part of peace-maker.
She waited a few moments to quell the indignant words that swelled in her throat, then began to talk to her son in kind and soothing terms, making every excuse that she could for the erring wife.
“She was an only daughter. She has been spoiled all her life, and she can not know how her tempers appear to us. We must try to soften her by repeated kindnesses and by continual forgiveness,” she ended.
Her son’s eyes flashed darkly under the straight, black brows.
“I have already given up to her to the extent of debasing my manhood by almost dog-like humility,” he replied. “‘Forbearance has ceased to be a virtue,’ and the issue now raised between us may become a battle-ground on which her insolent pride of power must be humbled, for I shall never yield.”