'By God!' He banged his hand on the table so that the dishes rattled. 'I have not seen you for weeks, and this is the way you receive me! It is always the same story, is it not? Always a headache, or you are tired, or the boy may be disturbed. I will not stand for it, I tell you!'

Even as he shouted at her, he knew that his anger and bluster were futile. In a way he admired her frigidity toward him. It was a desirable feminine trait—all pure women should feel that way—and he never approached her without a feeling of guilt. She had nearly died in childbirth. But it was damnably hard.

'I'm sorry, Joseph,' she whispered, with one of the quick voltes-face of manner which she inherited from her father. Now her voice was gentle, and she wistfully smiled at him. 'I know I'm not a very satisfactory wife. You should have married Anna Pinckney or one of the Middleton girls. They are bred to the plantations and would have managed far better than I. They could have given you a dozen—children'. She added, with a touch of malice, 'Their fathers, I'm sure, would never have proved troublesome to you.'

It was true, he thought, with a sensation of shock; perhaps he should have married one of the Middleton girls. But he hadn't wanted to, and, in spite of everything, he did not wish he had.

He put his arms around her almost timidly. 'I don't want anybody but you, Theodosia, you and little Burr'—for he could never bring himself to use Aaron's nickname of Gampy. 'I—I love you,' he said, stumbling over the word which he could use on paper, but which, when spoken, made him feel like a fool.

Her heart contracted. She touched his coarse crisp hair. He kissed her eagerly.

'Theodosia, I will write your father. He is always more than welcome to any home of mine.'

'Thank you, dear,' she said. Sometimes he was so like the sheep dog which Vanderlyn had long ago said he resembled: a dog that has snapped and snarled and is now trying once more to ingratiate himself.

'Good night,' she whispered.

Her rose perfume crept to him and stayed with him after she had gone into her room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

CHAPTER TWENTY

IT WAS October before Aaron finally arrived. An early sharp frost had made possible a return to the Oaks before his coming. Frost cut the fever, though no one was entirely agreed as to the reason. Either it 'froze the poisonous miasma which exuded from the swamplands,' or it 'produced a change of electrical fluid in the air and neutralized the excess acidity which was conducive to disease.'