Temperamental people

In Short

Mary Roberts Rinehart’s 1924 collection Temperamental People gathers eight dramatic short stories exploring the disruptive power of intense human emotion. Across varied settings—from hidden Swiss retreats and high-society art studios to Montana ranches and post-WWI French villages—her characters grapple with love, betrayal, secret parentage, and pride. Each narrative examines individuals governed by impulse rather than conventions, showing how passion reshapes ordinary lives. The book endures because of its sharp psychological insights, vivid characterization, and timeless portrayal of the conflict between duty and personal desire.

The Story

The volume opens with "Her Majesty, The Queen," tracing the tragic secret history of a exiled royal triangle. In a quiet Swiss room, an deposed Queen, her devoted companion Clotilde, and her loyal noble lover Rudi live out their remaining years watching young Toto—a boy who never suspects he is Rudi's son and the true heir to a fallen throne. Through Clotilde’s memories, the narrative reveals the Queen’s cold marriage to a suspicious King, her brief affair with Rudi, his bitter exile to Africa, and their desperate journey to glimpse the young prince during a grand procession.

Political and personal loyalties continue to clash in "The Altar on the Hill: The Secretary." Thomas Patrick, a devoted campaign staffer, loyally serves his political boss, blindly handling secret deposit boxes and discreetly managing the candidate’s scandals, including an affair with a stage actress named the Elliot girl. When a shooting erupts, Thomas Patrick takes the blame to protect his chief, allowing his own suspicious wife, Mary, to believe the worst. Caught in a web of political maneuvering, he faces total personal isolation for a loyalty that is never truly rewarded.

In "Cynara: The Sculptor," artistic drive turns inward and dark. Sidney, a once-gregarious sculptor who has gone blind, shuts himself in a blacked-out room to create a magnificent church altar piece out of cheap cement. Guarded by a severe housekeeper, he rejects his former social circle, bitter over his lost sight and mocking the world while secretly laboring on his masterwork.

"The Great Success: The Singer" shifts to the tensions of high society and conflicting worlds. Peggy, a successful opera singer, marries Jim Wentworth, a conventional man from a wealthy background. At a summer gathering, the divide between Peggy’s bohemian musical friends and Jim’s rigid family becomes painfully clear. As their lives fragment, Peggy supports her impoverished family members while struggling to maintain a marriage built on fundamentally incompatible lifestyles.

In "The Secret House: The Wife," a woman carrying out her late father's estate discovers a trail of cancelled checks made out to "Joan Bailey." She realizes her father spent a decade secretly supporting her long-lost child, whom she believed had died at birth. Terrified that revealing this hidden past will destroy her husband’s total trust in her "saintly" nature, she confronts the man from her past in silence, forced to weigh her present domestic peace against an unburied truth.

The collection then ventures out West in "A Midsummer Knight’s Dream: The Cowboy," where romance and jealousy destabilize a Montana cattle ranch. The Kid falls headlong for Rosamond, a visiting city woman, while ignoring Janet, the ranch girl who secretly loves him. When a foppish outsider named Crosby Nugent arrives, Janet uses him to provoke the Kid, sparking a tense standoff that tests the patience of the entire bunkhouse until the love triangle reaches its breaking point.

The final story, "“Ça Ne Fait Rien”: The Dough Boy," follows Sergeant Gray and his rival, Tommy, during the American occupation in post-armistice France. Entangled in a petty feud over military discipline, sugar pails, and pink envelopes, Gray navigates the frustrating slowness of army life while nursing heartbreak over his commander's niece, Peggy. Only after late-night interventions and a champagne toast with the general does the feud dissolve, ending the collection on a note of reconciliation.

How It Unfolds

An exiled court awaits a young prince In a quiet Swiss room, a former Queen, her lady-in-waiting Clotilde, and her lover Rudi spend their evenings playing chess while waiting for young Toto to visit. Clotilde recounts the secret past: the Queen's cold marriage, Rudi's heartbreaking exile to Africa, and their hidden journey to see the boy ride in a royal parade.

A loyal secretary takes the fall Thomas Patrick dutifully manages confidential bank boxes and cover-ups for his political boss, believing he is serving a noble leader. When scandal and a sudden shooting threaten the campaign, Thomas Patrick allows himself to be framed, ruining his marriage to Mary to protect a man who ultimately treats him as disposable.

A blind sculptor works in darkness Sidney locks himself away in a pitch-black studio, refusing entry to old friends while obsessively sculpting a magnificent altar piece out of cement. Visited by his friend Maurice, Sidney cynically rails against the art world while secretly pouring his remaining life into his hidden masterpiece.

Two clashing worlds strain a marriage Peggy, an opera singer, hosts a garden party where her boisterous musical colleagues fail to mix with her husband Jim’s conservative, wealthy relatives. As Peggy attempts to mediate between both sides, she realizes the profound gap in values that threatens their shared future.

Cancelled checks reveal a buried past While sorting through her deceased father’s papers, a woman finds a decade's worth of checks made out to Joan Bailey, uncovering the shock that her child did not die at birth as she was told. She must decide whether to keep the secret or risk her husband’s idyllic perception of her virtue.

Jealousy flares on the cattle ranch On a Montana ranch, the Kid abandons his bond with Janet to pursue Rosamond, prompting Janet to retaliate by flirting with a fop named Crosby Nugent. The resulting tension pushes the Kid to the verge of violence, forcing the older ranch hands to wait for the storm to blow over.

A wartime feud resolves in song In an occupied French village after the armistice, Sergeant Gray and his superior officer Tommy engage in a series of petty retaliations over military neatness and a shared love interest. The rivalry finally collapses when the general discovers the truth and toasts Gray’s upcoming marriage to his niece.

The People

• The Queen: A noblewoman living in Swiss exile who sacrifices her royal standing and happiness for her love for Rudi and her secret son, Toto.
• Rudi: A handsome, fiercely loyal aristocrat whose devotion to the Queen leads to a bitter exile in Africa and a life lived in shadows.
• Thomas Patrick: A naïve, hardworking campaign secretary whose deep desire to be attached to political greatness drives him to take the blame for a scandal, destroying his personal life.
• Mary: Thomas Patrick's fierce, protective wife who detests his manipulative political employer and fights passionately, if hysterically, to protect her husband.
• Sidney: A once-famous sculptor made bitter and cynical by sudden blindness, who retreats into a dark studio to work endlessly on a final cement altar piece.
• Peggy: A talented, generous opera singer who struggles to bridge the divide between her vibrant, artistic peers and her husband Jim’s rigid, conventional family.
• The Kid: A impulsive Montana cowboy whose overwhelming romantic passion for a visiting woman blinds him to the true feelings of those around him.
• Janet: A proud, sharp-witted ranch woman who, hurt by the Kid’s rejection, uses a visiting outsider to spark a dangerous battle of jealousy.
• Sergeant Gray: A stubborn, romantic American soldier stationed in France, whose petty feud with his superior officer hides a deep devotion to the general's niece.

In Its Own Voice

"The whole room would take on an air of waiting and of listening. Nobody spoke much. It was as if the ears and the minds of all three of them were turned toward the street and the passage below, waiting."

This passage captures the quiet, expectant tragedy of the exiled royal household, where three lives remain permanently suspended around the arrival of a boy who does not know their secret.

"Many friendships are refined out of the crucible of passion."

Here, the narrative reflects on the quiet aftermath of past romance, showing how intense youthful desires settle into enduring, reflective bonds over time.

"It’s a good bit like a boil, Dice... It’s got to come to a head before it can be cut."

The veteran rancher sums up the inevitable eruption of human conflict, treating volatile emotions as natural phenomena that must run their course before peace can return.

What It's Really About

Temperamental People explores the friction between individual passion and societal expectations. Rinehart examines how high-strung, sensitive, or intensely driven individuals—whether royalty, artists, politicians, or cowboys—frequently disrupt the quiet order of the world around them.

The stories probe the nature of self-sacrifice and secret burden. Characters repeatedly surrender their own happiness, reputations, or truth to protect those they love, raising lingering questions about whether such silence is noble or destructive. Beneath the various romantic plots lies an investigation into isolation: how intense dedication to an ideal, an art, or a person can cut an individual off from the rest of humanity, leaving them to navigate the consequences in quiet solitude.

Why Read It Today

Readers who enjoy early 20th-century character studies, traditional storytelling, and nuanced explorations of human relationships will find Temperamental People a deeply satisfying collection. Rinehart writes with a warm, observant eye, balancing dramatic tension with sharp psychological realism. The narrative voice feels clean, accessible, and grounded, moving easily between quiet domestic interiors and expansive outdoor settings.

The collection reflects its era, featuring classic period details, early 1900s social conventions, light regional dialect in the Western stories, and post-WWI military slang. Modern readers should note that the stories rely on the deliberate pace of traditional magazine fiction, favoring mood, atmospheric buildup, and character interaction over rapid action.

What lingers long after reading is Rinehart’s empathy for her characters' flaws. She never reduces her "temperamental" figures to mere caricatures; instead, she treats their intense desires, misguided loyalties, and dramatic mistakes with genuine human dignity, offering a memorable portrait of people driven by the unruly impulses of the heart.

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<Elicitation label="Compare the themes of secret parentage across the stories" query="Compare how secret parentage and hidden family truths are used as plot devices in 'Her Majesty, The Queen' and 'The Secret House: The Wife'."/> <Elicitation label="Analyze Rinehart's portrayal of artist archetypes" query="Analyze how Mary Roberts Rinehart portrays the temperamental artist archetype through the characters of Sidney the sculptor and Peggy the singer."/> </ElicitationsGroup>