Their first quarrel! And all about an onion! What cares Satan whether it be an apple or an onion, so that he spoil the Edens?
There were many more words quite as pungent as onions, and then there fell a silence between them that was not broken after Barbara had lighted the gas in the parlor, and drawn the table under the drop-light, and they were seated with books and newspapers. There was no reading done, but much ugly thinking. One line of it ran after this fashion:
"Strange that so delicate, refined a nature should have a taste for that vile, flagrant, odious onion!" A wretched discovery, that his wife should be fond of that for which he had always felt disgust! And evidently she did not mean to give them up, not even for his sake. Was she selfish and proud and obstinate and—and high-tempered? Had he been mistaken in her character and her regard for him?
The wife meantime was recalling an opinion long ago expressed by a friend, who said that Philip Lyman possessed a domineering spirit and was bound to rule all connected with him. She, herself, had never believed it, but this looked like it—wishing her to give up whatever he did not fancy, and hinting that she would be obliged to. Indeed! He would find that she did not drive well; no, indeed. If her husband had observed the glowing cheeks and flashing eyes just then he would have been justified in concluding that she was "high-tempered."
And now came a break in this uncomfortable state of things in the shape of Mr. John Lyman, on a business trip; "could only spend the night with his brother. He was sorry to spoil their evening together." He would have been sorrier had he known they had not spoken for just two hours.
Annette soon retired, leaving the brothers to talk over home affairs while she went to her room to indulge in the luxury of grief. How dark it all looked. Philip was changing. Perhaps he was sorry they were married. He had the same as said she was vulgar and coarse. He was fastidious; she could never please him; they would have dreadful quarrels, for she could not submit to be ordered. And now the tears that had been stored up all these bright years fell in most surprising showers, until sleep had got the better of them.
The morning was a hurrying time; the brother must get down town for the early train. A hasty good-by with averted eyes, and Philip was gone. As he lunched near his office, two miles away, he would not be at home again until night.
A long, unhappy day before Annette! She felt ten years older than yesterday morning, when Philip had come all the way back from the gate to put a rose in her hair. She wished she could see her mother; she wished she could go off where Philip wouldn't find her in years; that is, she thought she did. Oh! What a wretched world it was. Poor foolish child! But she had only lived twenty little years.
Mr. Philip Lyman alone in his office, tried to settle himself to his usual duties, but he felt ill at ease and uninterested. Finally he threw down his pen, tipped back in his chair, and locked his fingers together at the back of his head, a favorite thinking attitude. His eyes wandered out the window, resting on white clouds sailing through the sky. Perhaps the deep blue reminded him of Nettie's eyes, or the wrapper she had worn that morning. However it was, he soon fell to confessing to those soft clouds.
"What a consummate idiot! She thinks me a tyrant, and rude and selfish. She ought to be vexed at me. As if I should make over her tastes, and try to control her. I was rude and hateful and unkind. Contemptible!"