In word and deed she had done her duty toward him thus far, and he had nothing to complain of.

It is true she was very quiet and passive, and undemonstrative, never giving him back any caress as he had seen wives do.

But then he was not very demonstrative himself, and so he excused it the more readily in her, and loved her all the same.

It amused him that a girl of twenty should presume to criticise him, a man of thirty-two, a Judge, and a member of Congress, to whom the Olney people paid such deference, and he bore with her at first just as a mother would bear with the little child which assumed a superiority over her.
This afternoon, however, when she said so much to him, he was conscious of a very little irritation, for he was naturally high-spirited.

But he put the feeling down, and gayly kissed his six-weeks bride, who, touched with his forbearance, kissed him back again, and suffered him to hold her cool face a moment between his hot, moist hands, while he bent over her.
She did respect him in spite of his vulgarism; nor was she unconscious of the position which, as his wife, she held.