"I think a man ought always to put his wife first." And turning her back to the door, she took up a book and made a pretence of being deeply interested in its perusal.
Edward's step, however, passed on into the dressing-room, and as she heard him moving about there, she grew more and more vexed.

It seemed that he was in no great haste to greet her after this their first day's separation; he could put it off, not only for a visit to his mother in her private apartments, but also until he had gone through the somewhat lengthened duties of the toilet.
Well, she would show him that she, too, could wait--could be as cool and indifferent as himself.

She assumed a graceful attitude in an easy-chair, her pretty little feet upon a velvet-cushioned stool, and with her book lying in her lap listened intently to every sound coming from the adjoining room.
At last she heard his step approach the door, then his hand upon the knob, when she instantly took up her book and fixed her eyes upon its open page, as though unconscious of everything but what was printed there, yet really not taking in the meaning of a single word.
Edward came in, came close to her side.

Still she neither moved nor lifted her eyes.

But she could not control her color, and he saw through her pretences.
He knelt down beside her chair, bent his head and looked up into her face with laughing eyes.
"What can it be that so interests my little wife that she does not even know that her husband has come home, after this their first day of separation?
Have you no kiss of welcome for him, little woman ?" The book was thrust hastily aside, and in an instant her arms were about his neck, her lips pressed again and again to his.
"O Ned, I do love you!" she said softly, "but I began to think you didn't care for me--going to see mamma first, and then waiting to dress." "Mamma and grandpa were concerned in the business that took me away to-day, and I owed them a prompt report upon it; yet I looked in here first for my wife, but couldn't find her; then I asked for her, and was told that she had been seen going out for a walk.