“I wish you wouldn’t be so late coming down to breakfast,” she said, addressing Jessica, while making for her crochet basket.  “Now here the things are quite cold, and you haven’t eaten.”

Her natural composure was sadly ruffled, and Jessica was doomed to feel the fag end of the storm.

“I’m not hungry,” she answered.

“Then why don’t you say so, and let the girl put away the things, instead of keeping her waiting all morning?”

“She doesn’t mind,” answered Jessica, coolly.

“Well, I do, if she doesn’t,” returned the mother, “and, anyhow, I don’t like you to talk that way to me.  You’re too young to put on such an air with your mother.”

“Oh, mamma, don’t row,”; answered Jessica.  “What’s the matter this morning, anyway?”

“Nothing’s the matter, and I’m not rowing.  You mustn’t think because I indulge you in some things that you can keep everybody waiting.  I won’t have it.”

“I’m not keeping anybody waiting,” returned Jessica, sharply, stirred out of a cynical indifference to a sharp defense.  “I said I wasn’t hungry.  I don’t want any breakfast.”

“Mind how you address me, missy.  I’ll not have it.  Hear me now; I’ll not have it!”

Jessica heard this last while walking out of the room, with a toss of her head and a flick of her pretty skirts indicative of the independence and indifference she felt.  She did not propose to be quarreled with.

Such little arguments were all too frequent, the result of a growth of natures which were largely independent and selfish.  George, Jr., manifested even greater touchiness and exaggeration in the matter of his individual rights, and attempted to make all feel that he was a man with a man’s privileges—­an assumption which, of all things, is most groundless and pointless in a youth of nineteen.

Hurstwood was a man of authority and some fine feeling, and it irritated him excessively to find himself surrounded more and more by a world upon which he had no hold, and of which he had a lessening understanding.

Now, when such little things, such as the proposed earlier start to Waukesha, came up, they made clear to him his position.  He was being made to follow, was not leading.  When, in addition, a sharp temper was manifested, and to the process of shouldering him out of his authority was added a rousing intellectual kick, such as a sneer or a cynical laugh, he was unable to keep his temper.  He flew into hardly repressed passion, and wished himself clear of the whole household.  It seemed a most irritating drag upon all his desires and opportunities.

For all this, he still retained the semblance of leadership and control, even though his wife was straining to revolt.  Her display of temper and open assertion of opposition were based upon nothing more than the feeling that she could do it.  She had no special evidence wherewith to justify herself—­the knowledge of something which would give her both authority and excuse.  The latter was all that was lacking, however, to give a solid foundation to what, in a way, seemed groundless discontent.  The clear proof of one overt deed was the cold breath needed to convert the lowering clouds of suspicion into a rain of wrath.