undisciplined, perhaps not more selfish than other girls of her
age, but self-centred and unreasonable. She had to learn self-
control, and she hated to control herself. She had to economize
when poverty possessed neither picturesqueness nor interest. They
were always several weeks late in the payment of domestic bills,
and these recurring reminders of money stringency maddened Cherry.
Sometimes she summed it up, with angry tears, reminding him that
she was still wearing her trousseau dresses, and had no maid, and
never went anywhere--!

But she developed steadily. As she grew skilful in managing her
little house, she also grew in the art of managing her husband and
herself. She became clever at avoiding causes of disagreement; she
listened, nodded, agreed, with a boiling heart, and had the
satisfaction of having Martin's viewpoint veer the next day, or
the next hour, to meet her own secret conviction. Martin's
opinion, she told herself wearily, as she swept and cooked and
marketed busily, didn't matter anyhow. He would rage and storm at
his superiors, he would threaten and brood, and then it would all
be forgotten, time after time after time. Silent, absent-minded,
looking closely at a burn upon her smooth arm or pleating her
checked apron, Cherry would sit opposite him at his late lunch.

"I suppose you don't agree with me?" he would interrupt himself to
ask scowlingly.

"Mart--" The innocent blue eyes would be raised vaguely. "I don't
know anything about it, dear. If Mr. Taylor--"

"Well, you know what I tell you, don't you?"