told herself, a suggestion of a smile touching her lips,
and mentally she sent dish after dish at him, watching them fall
shattered to the floor. Dismay at the relief this gave her brought the
dimples into her cheeks. Her voice was pleasant as she asked: "Martin,
did you hear your spouse just now?"

Annoyance flitted across his face and crept into his tone as he answered
tersely: "Of course, I heard you." Presently he finished his meal,
pushed back his chair and went out.

Nothing further was said between them on the subject, but when the
scaffolding went up she saw that it was for only one story. It might
have comforted her a little, had she known what uneasy moments
Martin was having. In spite of himself, he could not shake off the
consciousness that he had broken his word. That was something which,
heretofore, he had never done. But, heretofore, his promises had been of
a strictly business nature. He would deliver so many bushels of wheat at
such and such a time; he would lend such and such a piece of machinery;
he would supply so many men and so many teams at a neighbor's threshing;
he would pay so much per pound for hogs; he would guarantee so many eggs
out of a setting or so many pounds of butter in so many months from
a cow he was selling. A few such guarantees made good at a loss to
himself, a few such loads delivered in adverse weather, a few such
pledges of help kept when he was obliged actually to hire men, had
established for him an enviable reputation, which Martin was of no mind
to lose. Had Rose not released him from his promise he would have kept
it. Even now he was disturbed as to what Fletcher and Fallon might
think. But already he had lived long enough with his wife to understand
something of the quality of her pride. Once having agreed to the change,
she would carry it off with a dash.

Had Rose stood her ground on this matter, undoubtedly all her after life
might have been different, but she was of those women whose charm and
whose folly lie in their sensitiveness to the moods and contentment of
the people most closely associated with them. They can rise above their
own discomfort or depression, but they are utterly unable to disregard
that of those near them. This gave Martin, who by temperament and habit
considered only his own feelings, an incalculable advantage. His was the
old supremacy of the selfish over the self sacrificing, the hard over
the tender, the mental over the emotional. Add to t