"Now, Hero, how silly! Do have it your own way. I'll give it up." "No,--let it be as you say. I forgot that it was a wife's duty to submit." "Nonsense, Hero! Do talk like a rational woman. Don't let us quarrel like children." "But it's so evident that I was in the right." "My dear, I cannot concede that you were in the right; but I am willing it should be as you say." "Now I perfectly wonder, Leander, that you don't see how awkward your way is. It would make me nervous every time I came into the room, and it would be so dark in that corner that I never could see the notes." "And I wonder, Hero, that a woman of your taste don't see how shutting up that bow-window spoils the parlor. It's the very prettiest feature of the room." And so round and round they go, stating and restating their arguments, both getting more and more nervous and combative, both declaring themselves perfectly ready to yield the point as an oppressive exaction, but to do battle for their own opinion as right and reason,--the animal instinct of self-will meanwhile rising and rising and growing stronger and stronger on both sides. But meanwhile in the heat of argument some side-issues and personal reflections fly out like splinters in the shivering of lances. He tells her, in his heat, that her notions are formed from deference to models in fashionable life, and that she has no idea of adaptation,--and she tells him that he is domineering, and dictatorial, and wanting to have everything his own way; and in fine, this battle is fought off and on through the day, with occasional armistices of kisses and makings-up,--treacherous truces, which are all broken up by the fatal words, "My dear, after all, you must admit _I_ was in the right," which of course is the signal to fight the whole battle over again. One such prolonged struggle is the parent of many lesser ones,--the aforenamed splinters of injurious remark and accusation, which flew out in the heat of argument, remaining and festering and giving rise to nervous soreness; yet, where there is at the foundation real, genuine love, and a good deal of it, the pleasure of making up so balances the pain of the controversy that the two do not perceive exactly what they are doing, nor suspect that so deep and wide a love as theirs can be seriously affected by causes so insignificant. But the cause of difficulty in both, the silent, unwatched, intense power of self-will in trifles, is all the while precipitating them into new encounters. For example, in a bright hour between the showers, Hero arranges for her Leander a repast of peace and good-will, and compounds for him a salad which is a _chef d'oeuvre_ among salads. Leander is also bright and propitious; but after tasting the salad, he pushes it silently away. "My dear, you don't like your salad." "No, my dear; I never eat anything with salad oil in it." "Not eat salad oil? How absurd! I never heard of a salad without oil." And the lady looks disturbed.