the fashionable London and Paris makers, the monograms,
the linings of ermine and sable. "I'm very particular about everything
that touches me," explained he. "It seems to me a gentleman can't be
too particular." With a meaning glance at Mildred, "And I'd feel the
same way about my wife."

"You hear that, Mildred?" said Presbury, with a nasty little laugh. He
had been relieving the tedium of this sight-seeing tour by
observing--and from time to time aggravating--Mildred's sufferings.

The general released his mirth-strangling goat laugh; Mrs. Presbury
echoed it with a gale of rather wild hysterics. So well pleased was
the general with the excursion and so far did he feel advanced toward
intimacy that on the way down the majestic marble stairway he ventured
to give Mildred's arm a gentle, playful squeeze. And at the parting he
kissed her hand. Presbury had changed his mind about returning to the
country. On the way to the hotel he girded at Mildred, reviewing all
that the little general had said and done, and sneering, jeering at it.
Mildred made not a single retort until they were upstairs in the hotel.
At the door to her room she said to Presbury--said it in a quiet, cold,
terrible way:

"If you really want me to go through with this thing, you will stop
insulting him and me. If you do it again, I'll give up--and go on the
streets before I'll marry him."

Presbury shrugged his shoulders and went on to the other room. But he
did not begin again the next day, and from that time forth avoided
reference to the general. In fact, there was an astonishing change in
his whole demeanor. He ceased to bait his wife, became polite, even
affable. If he had conducted himself thus from the outset, he would
have got far less credit, would have made far less progress toward
winning the liking of his wife, and of her daughter, than he did in a
brief two weeks of change from petty and malignant tyrant to
good-natured, interestingly talkative old gentleman. After the manner
of human nature, Mildred and her mother, in their relief, in their
pleasure through this amazing sudden and wholly unexpected geniality,
not merely forgave but forgot all they had suffered at his hands.
Mildred was not without a suspicion of the truth that this change,
inaugurated in his own good time, was fresh evidence of his contempt
for both of them--of his feeling that he could easily make reparation
with a little kindness and decency and put hims