“I think I’ll go and brush my hair,” she said, moving to the door; but he sprang to his feet and stood in front of her. “Tell me!” he cried, his voice shaking. “Don’t you love me as much as I love you?” “Oh, Beverly,” she said, impatiently, “how can you get into such tempers about nothing? You have asked me if I loved you about nine thousand times since we were married. How am I to know how much you love me? Have you a plummet and line about you?” “You are dodging the question. And you have never asked me if I loved you—not once—” Patience slipped past him and ran down the hall to her room. Before she could close the door he was beside her. He caught her in his arms and kissed her violently. “I shall always be mad about you,” he said. “And I believe you are growing cold. You have not been the same lately. Sometimes I think that you shrink from me as you did at first. Tell me what I have done. I’d sell my soul to keep you. If you are tired of me, I’ll kill myself—” She disengaged herself. “Listen,” she said; “I’ve tried to explain—but you don’t seem to understand—that I didn’t want to fall in love with you—not in that way. That should not come first. Then when I found myself made of common clay, I said that I would forget that I had ever been Patience Sparhawk, and begin life again as Mrs. Beverly Peele. Novelty helped me; and when one is travelling, one’s ego appears to be dissolved into the changing scene—one is simply a sensitised plate. But now I am beginning to feel like Patience Sparhawk again, and it frightens me a little.” Beverly, to whom the larger part of these remarks were pure Greek, blanched to the lips. “Then you regret it,” he stammered. “I didn’t say that. I only mean that I seem to spend life readjusting myself; and that now I seem to be all at sea again.” “You don’t love me any longer! Oh, God!” and he flung himself on the floor, and burying his face in a chair, groaned aloud. Patience was disgusted, but his suffering, primary as it was, touched her. Moreover, her broad vein of philosophy was active once more. She was by no means prepared to leave him—the tide was ebbing very slowly. She sat down on the chair, and lifted his face to her lap. “There,” she said, “I am sorry I spoke. You don’t seem to understand me. If you did, though, this scene could never have occurred. But I love you—of course—and I do not regret it. So get up and bathe your eyes. It is after seven o’clock.” He kissed her hands, his face glowing again. The words were all sufficient to him. “Then if you love me you will see how happy I’ll make you,” he exclaimed. “I’ll never leave you a minute I can help; but if you stop loving me I’ll make life hell for you.” “I thought you said you’d kill yourself.” “Well, I would, but I’d get square with you first.” “Well, suppose you go into your own room now, and let me dress for dinner.” IV