he knew it, and he knew it. But she wanted just
that hat.

And they were on their honeymoon, you know: which enormously
intensified the poignancy of the drama. They had been married only six
days; in three days more they were to return to the Five Towns, where
Stephen was solidly established as an earthenware manufacturer. You who
have been through them are aware what ticklish things honeymoons are,
and how much depends on the tactfulness of the more tactful of the two
parties. Stephen, thirteen years older than Vera, was the more tactful
of the two parties. He had married a beautiful and elegant woman, with
vast unexploited capacities for love in her heart. But he had married a
capricious woman, and he knew it. So far he had yielded to her
caprices, as well became him; but in the depths of his masculine mind
he had his own private notion as to the identity of the person who
should ultimately be master in their house, and he had decided only the
previous night that when the next moment for being firm arrived, firm
he would be.

And now the moment was upon him. It was their eyes that fought,
silently, bitterly. There is a great deal of bitterness in true love.

Stephen perceived the affair broadly, in all its aspects. He was older
and much more experienced than Vera, and therefore he was responsible
for the domestic peace, and for her happiness, and for his own, and for
appearances, and for various other things. He perceived the moral
degradation which would be involved in an open quarrel during the
honeymoon. He perceived the difficulties of a battle in the street, in
such a select and prim street as the Strand, Torquay, where the very
backbone of England's respectability goes shopping. He perceived Vera's
vast ignorance of life. He perceived her charm, and her naughtiness,
and all her defects. And he perceived, further, that, this being the
first conflict of their married existence, it was of the highest
importance that he should emerge from it the victor. To allow Vera to
triumph would gravely menace their future tranquillity and multiply the
difficulties which her adorable capriciousness would surely cause. He
could not afford to let her win. It was his duty, not merely to himself
but to her, to conquer. But, on the other hand, he had never fully
tested her powers of sheer obstinacy, her willingness to sacrifice
everything for the satisfaction of a whim; and he feared these powers.
He had a dim suspicion that Vera