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“Your daughter will benefit by that,” Mrs. Stuart corrected.

“Well, what’s that to do with it?” He seemed to lose the scent.

“What was our understanding when I agreed to marry you?”

“I’ve done more’n I promised, I tell you.”

“As you very well know, I married you because my family were in desperate circumstances. Our understanding was that I should be a good wife, and you were to make my family comfortable according to my views. Isn’t that right?”

The old man blanched at this businesslike presentation; his voice grew feebler.

“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.

“What’s up with papa?”

Mrs. Stuart went on with her breakfast in silence. She was superbly preserved, and queenly for an American woman. It seemed as if something had stayed the natural decay of her powers, of her person, and had put her always at this impassive best. Something had stopped her heart to render her passionless, and thus to embalm her for long years of mechanical activity. She would not decay, but when her time should come she would merely stop–the spring would snap.

The daughter had her mother’s height and her dark coloring. But her large, almost animal eyes, and her roughly moulded hands spoke of some homely, prairie inheritance. Her voice was timid and hesitating.

At last Mrs. Stuart, her mail and breakfast exhausted at the same moment, Rose to leave the room.

“Oh, Edith,” she remarked, authoritatively, “if you happen to drive down town this morning, will you tell your father that we are going to Winetka for a few weeks? Or telephone him, if you find it more convenient. And send the boys to me. Miss Bates will make all arrangements. I think there is a train about three.”

“Why, mamma, you don’t mean to stay there! I thought we were to be here all winter. And my lessons at the Art Institute?”

Mrs. Stuart smiled contemptuously. “Lessons at the Art Institute are not the most pressing matter for my daughter, who is about to come out. You can amuse yourself with golf and tennis as long as they last. Then, perhaps, you will have a chance to continue your lessons in Paris.”