she despised me."

Again and again that incident had come back to him. It had been,
perhaps, the most powerful factor in his patience with her airs
and condescensions. He felt that it, the lowest dip of his
degradation in snobism, had given her the right to keep him in his
place. It seemed to him one of those frightful crimes against
self-respect which can never be atoned, and, bad as he thought it
from the standpoint of good sense as to the way to get on with
her, he suffered far more because it was such a stinging, scoffing
denial of all his pretenses of personal pride. "Her sensibilities
have been too blunted by association with those Washington
vulgarians," he reasoned, "for her to realize the enormity of my
offense, but she realizes enough to look down at me more
contemptuously every time she recalls it." However, the greater
the blunder the greater the necessity of repairing. He resolutely
thrust his self-abasing thoughts to the background of his mind,
and began afresh.

"I'm sure," said he, "you'd not mind, once you got used to it."

She was startled out of her abstraction. "Used to--what?" she
inquired.

"To getting up early."

"Oh!" She gave a relieved laugh. "Still harping on that. How
persistent you are!"

"You could accomplish twice as much if you got up early and made a