mentally, that even she could appreciate the difference,
the descent. She rather enjoyed the prospect of a
combat with him, of the end of dissimulating her
contempt. She had thought out and had put in
arsenal ready for use a variety of sneers, jeers, and
insults that suggested themselves to her as she
listened and simpered and responded while he was
courting.

Had the opportunity offered earlier than the fourth
day she would have seized it, but not until that fourth
morning was she in just the right mood. She had
eaten too much dinner the night before, and had
followed it after two hours in a stuffy theater with an
indigestible supper. He liked the bedroom windows
open at night; she liked them closed. After she fell
into a heavy sleep, he slipped out of bed and opened
the windows wide--to teach her by the night's happy
experience that she was entirely mistaken as to the
harmfulness of fresh winter air. The result was that
she awakened with a frightful cold and a splitting
headache. And as the weather was about to change
she had shooting pains like toothache through her
toes the instant she thrust them into her shoes.
The elderly groom, believing he had a rich bride,
was all solicitude and infuriating attention. She
waited until he had wrought her to the proper pitch of
fury. Then she said--in reply to some remark of
his: