They understood each other too well to make light account of things
said and done, even in anger.

In going over, as Irene did many times, the language used by her
husband on the night before, touching their relation as man and
wife, and his prerogative, she felt the old spirit of revolt
arising. She tried to let her thought fall into his rational
presentation of the question involving precedence, and even said to
herself that he was right; but pride was strong, and kept lifting
itself in her mind. She saw, most clearly, the hardest aspect of the
case. It was, in her view, command and obedience. And she knew that
submission was, for her, impossible.

On the part of Emerson, the day's sober thought left his mind in no
more hopeful condition than that of his wife. The pain suffered in
consequence of her temporary flight from home, though lessened by
her return, had not subsided. A portion of confidence in her was
lost. He felt that he had no guarantee for the future; that at any
moment, in the heat of passion, she might leave him again. He
remembered, too distinctly, her words on the night before, when he
tried to make her comprehend his view of the relation between man
and wife--"That will not suit me, Hartley." And he felt that she was
in earnest; that she would resist every effort he might make to lead
and control as a man in certain things, just as she had done from
the beginning.

In matrimonial quarrels you cannot kiss and make up again, as
children do, forgetting all the stormy past in the sunshiny present.
And this was painfully clear to both Hartley and Irene, as she,
alone in her chamber, and he, alone in his office, pondered, on that