Lydia was scarcely
conscious of refraining from the entirely justifiable and entirely
futile customary recriminations, and she was as unaware as Paul of the
vast amount of embittering domestic friction which was spared them by
her silence. She had some great natural advantages for the task of
creating a better domestic life at which she was now so eagerly setting
herself, and one of them was this incapacity to resent petty injustices
done to herself. She was handicapped in any effort by her utter lack of
intellectual training and by a natural tendency to mental confusion, but
her lack of small vanities not only spared her untold suffering, but
added much to her singleness of aim.

She now went about searching for the catalogue, finally finding it in
the library under the couch. When she came back to the dining-room she
saw Paul standing up by the table, wiping his mouth. Evidently he was
ready to start. How absurd she had been to think of talking seriously to
him in the morning!

"Mary brought your breakfast in," he said nodding toward an untidy tray.
"I hate to seem to be finding fault all the time, but really her breath
was enough to set the house on fire! Can't you keep her down to moderate
drinking?"

"I'll try," said Lydia.

Paul took the catalogue from her hand and reached for his hat. They
were in the hall now. "Good-by, Honey," he said, kissing her hastily and
darting out of the house.

Lydia had but just turned back to the dining-room when he opened the
door and came in again, bringing a gust of fresh winter air with him.
"Say, dear, you forgot about something you wanted to tell me about. I've
got eight minutes before the trolley, so now's your chance. What is it?
Something about the plumbing?"

In the dusky hall Lydia faced him for a moment in silence, with so
singular an expression on her face that he looked apprehensive of some
sort of scene. Then she broke out into breathless, quavering laughter,
whose uncertainty did not prevent Paul from great relief at her apparent
change of mood. "Never mind," she said, leaning against the newel-post,
"I'll tell you--I'll tell you some other time."

He kissed her again, and she felt that it was with a greater tenderness
now that he no longer feared a possibly disagreeable communication from
her.

After he had gone, she thought loyally, putting things in the order of
importance she had been taught all her life, "Well, it _is_ hard for him
to have perplexities