"Ain't she a wonder?" the old man would exclaim to Spencer, in new admiration for his wife. And Spencer, watching the stately, authoritative woman day after day as she worked quickly, exactly, with the repose and dignity of a perfect machine, shivered back an unwilling assent.
"She's marvellous!"
All accidents played into the hands of this masterful woman. Her own presence in town kept her daughter at Winetka en evidence for Stuyvesant Wheelright and Mrs. Wheelright. For Mrs. Stuart had determined upon him as, on the whole, the most likely arrangement that she could make. He was American, but of the best, and Mrs. Stuart was wise enough to prefer the domestic aristocracy. So to her mind affairs were not going badly. The truce would conclude ultimately in a senile capitulation; meantime, she could advance money for the household in London.
When Stuart had been nursed back into comparative activity, the grand dinners began once more—a convenient rebuttal for all gossip. The usual lists of distinguished strangers, wandering English story-tellers in search of material for a new "shilling shocker," artists suing to paint her or "Mademoiselle l'Inconnue," crept from time to time into the genial social column of the newspaper.
Stuart spent the evenings in state on a couch at the head of the drawing-room, where he usually remained until the guests departed. In this way he got a few words with his wife before she sent him to bed. One night his enthusiasm over her bubbled out.
"You're a great woman, Beatty!" She looked a little pale, but otherwise unworn by her laborious month. It was not blood that fed those even pulses.
"You will not need my help now. You can see to your business yourself," she remarked.
"Say, Beatty, you won't leave me again, will you!" he quavered, beseechingly. "I need you these last years; 'twon't be for long."
"Oh, you are strong and quite well again," she asserted, not unkindly.
"Will a hundred thousand do?" he pleaded. "Times are bad and ready money is scarce, as you know."