he had left on the edge of the table. She had thought it all out within a few seconds, and in none of the pictures she had conjured up could she find a place for her husband. The fastidiousness which persisted through all his efforts to be "plain folks" could not be reconciled with the stark details of the tragedy ten miles down the road.
"No, Keble dear," she replied with a firmness she knew he wouldn't resist. More than once she had secretly wished he would resist her firmness, for every yielding on his part seemed to increase her habit of being firm, and that was a habit that bade fair to petrify the amiable little gaieties and pliancies of her nature. "You know you've been anxious about the Dam. It won't do to put off the trip again. Katie will understand your absence, and she will feel comforted to have at least one dude present. You know I'm considered a dude, too, since my marriage. Nowadays my old friends address me as stiffly as we used to address the schoolma'am. . . . It's strange what trifles determine the manners of this world."
"Was our marriage such a trifle?"
Louise came out of her reflective mood and smiled, then said, as if just discovering it, "Why, yes, when you think of all the big things there are."
"What about Billy's death? Is that a big thing?"
"A big thing to Katie, just as our being together is a big thing to us."
"What a horrid way of putting it!"
