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The bell-boy had scarcely closed the door of their room, with its double bed, when he had seized her, torn off her overcoat, with its snow-wet collar, and hurled it on the floor. He kissed her throat. When he had loosened his clasp, she retreated, the back of her hand fearfully at her lips, her voice terrified as she begged, "Oh, don't! Not now! I'm afraid!"

"That's damned nonsense!" he raged, stalking her as she backed away.

"Oh, no, please!"

"Say, what the devil do you think marriage is?"

"Oh, I've never heard you curse before!"

"My God, I wouldn't, if you didn't act so's it'd try the patience of a saint on a monument!" He controlled himself. "Now, now, now! I'm sorry! Guess I'm kind of tired, too. There, there, little girl. Didn't mean to scare you. Excuse me. Just showed I was crazy in love with you, don't you see?"

To his broad and apostolic smirk she responded with a weak smile, and he seized her again, laid his thick hand on her breast. Between his long embraces, though his anger at her limpness was growing, he sought to encourage her by shouting, "Come on now, Clee, show some spunk!"

She did not forbid him again; she was merely a pale acquiescence—pale save when she flushed unhappily as he made fun of the old-fashioned, long-sleeved nightgown which she timidly put on in the indifferent privacy of the bathroom.

"Gee, you might as well wear a gunny-sack!" he roared, holding out his arms. She tried to look confident as she slowly moved toward him. She did not succeed.

"Fellow ought to be brutal, for her own sake," he told himself, and seized her shoulders.

When he awoke beside her and found her crying, he really did have to speak up to her.

"You look here now! The fact you're a preacher's wife doesn't keep you from being human! You're a fine one to teach brats in Sunday School!" he said, and many other strong spirited things, while she wept, her hair disordered round her meek face, which he hated.