“I hate to be read aloud to.  Joshua, let’s go on to New York.  Such a night of horror as you’ve planned will wear me out.”

“I tell you it’s impossible.  I’ve done the best thing in the circumstances.  You’ll see.”

Suddenly she sprang up, looked wildly round.  “Where’s Selina?” she gasped.

“Coming to-morrow or next day,” replied he.  “I sent her to the camp for some things I forgot.”

She sank back and said no more.  Again she was tempted to revolt against such imbecile tyranny; and again, as she debated the situation, the wisdom, the necessity of submitting became apparent.  How would it sound to have to explain to her grandmother that she had left him because he took an inconvenient train?  “I’d like to see him try this sort of thing if we’d been married six months instead of six weeks,” she muttered.

She refused to talk with him, answered him in cold monosyllables.  And after dinner, when he produced the volume of Emerson and began to read aloud, she curtly asked him to be quiet.  “I wish to sleep!” snapped she.

“Do, dear,” urged he.  And he put his arm around her.

“That’s very uncomfortable,” said she, trying to draw away.

He drew her back, held her—­and she knew she must either submit or make a scene.  There was small attraction to scene-making with such a master of disgraceful and humiliating scenes as he.  “He wouldn’t care a rap,” she muttered.  “He simply revels in scenes, knowing he’s sure to win out at them as a mongrel in a fight with a”—­even in that trying moment her sense of humor did not leave her—­“with a lapdog.”

She found herself comfortable and amazingly content, leaning against his shoulder; and presently she went to sleep, he holding the book in his free hand and reading calmly.  The next thing she knew he was shaking her gently.  “Albany,” he said.  “We’ve got to change here.”

She rose sleepily and followed him from the car, adjusting her hat as she went.  She had thought she would be wretched; instead, she felt fine as the sharp, night air roused her nerves and freshened her skin.  He led the way into the empty waiting-room; the porter piled the bags on the bench; she seated herself.  “I must send a telegram,” said he, and he went over to the window marked “Telegraph Office.”  It was closed.  He knocked and rattled, and finally pounded on the glass with his umbrella handle.

Her nerves went all to pieces.  “Can’t you see,” she called impatiently, “that there’s no one there?”

“There will be some one!” he shouted in reply, and fell to pounding so vigorously that she thought the glass would surely break.  But it did not; after a while the window flew up and an angry face just escaped a blow from the vibrating umbrella handle.  A violent altercation followed, the operator raging, but Craig more uproarious than he and having the further advantage of a more extensive and more picturesque vocabulary.  Finally the operator said:  “I should think you’d be ashamed of yourself.  Don’t you see there’s a lady present?”