"And I have, Beatty. I have! I've done everything by you I promised. And I built this great house and another at Newport, and you ain't never satisfied."
"That was our agreement, then," she continued, without mercy. "I was just nineteen, and wise, for a girl, and you had forty-seven pretty wicked years. There wasn't any nonsense between us. I was a stunning girl, the most talked about in New York at that time. I was to be a good wife, and we weren't to have any words. Have I kept my promise?"
"Yes, you've been a good woman, Beatty, better'n I deserved. But won't you take less, say fifty thousand?" He advanced conciliatorily. "That's an awful figure!"
His wife rose, composed as ever and stately in her well-sustained forty years.
"Do you think any price is too great in payment for these twenty-one years?" Contempt crept in. "Not one dollar less, two hundred thousand, and I cable mamma to-day."
Stuart shrivelled up.
"Do you refuse?" she remarked, lightly, for he stood irresolutely near the door.
"I won't stand that!" and he went out.
When he had left Mrs. Stuart went on with her breakfast; a young woman Came in hastily from the hall, where she had bade her father good-by. She stood in the window watching the coachman surrender the horses to the old man. The groom moved aside quickly, and in a moment the two horses shot nervously through the ponderous iron gateway. The delicate wheels just grazed the stanchions, lifting the light buggy in the air to a ticklish angle. It righted itself and plunged down the boulevard. Fast horses and cigars were two of the few pleasures still left the old store-keeper. There was another—a costly one—which was not always forthcoming.
Miss Stuart watched the groom close the ornate iron gates, and then turned inquiringly to her mother.