The summer passed agreeably enough. Circumstances prevented Beverly bestowing an undue amount of his society on his wife, and until a woman is wholly tired of a man she retains her self respect. Moreover, Patience chose to believe herself in love with him: “it had been in her original estimate of herself that she had been at fault.” She persuaded herself that she loved him as much as she could love any man, and she did her pathetic best to shed some glimmer of spiritual light into a man who might have been compounded in a laboratory, so little soul was in him. But despite the clay which was hers, she loved it a great deal for a time in loving it at all, for that was her nature. She went to several other garden-parties, and found them more amusing than her own, although the young men that frequented them were quite uninteresting: even Beverly scintillated by contrast, for he, at least, had a temper; these more civilised youths appeared to have no emotions whatever. Peele Manor was full of company all summer. Patience found the married men more entertaining than the younger ones, although they usually made love to her; but after she had outgrown her surprise and disapproval of their direct and business-like methods, it amused her to fence with them. They had more self-control than Beverly Peele, and were a trifle more skilful, but their general attitude was, as she expressed it to Hal: “There’s no time to lose, dontcherknow! Life is short, and New York’s a busy place. What the deuce is there to wait for? Sentiment? Oh, sentiment be hanged! It takes too much time.” Hal was an accomplished hostess, and allowed her guests little time to make love or to yawn. There were constant riding and driving and yachting parties, picnics and tennis and golf. In the evening they danced, romped, or had impromptu “Varieties.” Patience was fascinated with the life, although she still had the sense of being an alien, and moments of terrible loneliness. But she was too much of a girl not to take a girl’s delight in the dash and glitter and picturesqueness of society. She was not popular, although she quickly outgrew any external points of difference; but the essential difference was felt and resented. On the whole there was concord between herself and her mother-in-law. Mr. Peele she barely knew. His family saw little of him. He had not attended the wedding. When Patience had arrived at Peele Manor after her trip, he had kissed her formally, and remarked that he hoped she “would make something of Beverly.”