All his life Burke had consulted no one's will but his own. It was not easy now to walk when he wanted to sit still, nor to talk when he wanted to read; especially as the one who wanted him to walk and to talk happened to be a willful young person who all _her_ life had been in the habit of walking and talking when _she_ wanted to. Burke, accustomed from babyhood to leaving his belongings wherever he happened to drop them, was first surprised and then angry that he did not find them magically restored to their proper places, as in the days of his boyhood and youth. Burke abhorred disorder. Helen, accustomed from her babyhood to being picked-up after, easily drifted into the way of letting all things, both hers and his, lie as they were. It saved a great deal of work. Even so simple a matter as the temperature of a sleeping-room had its difficulties. Burke liked air. He wanted the windows wide open. Helen, trained to think night air was damp and dangerous, wanted them shut. And when two people are sleepy, cross, and tired, it is appalling what a range of woe can lie in the mere opening and shutting of a window. Burke was surprised, annoyed, and dismayed. Being unaccustomed to disappointments he did not know how to take them gracefully. This being married was not proving to be at all the sort of thing he had pictured to himself. He had supposed that life, married life, was to be a new wonder every day; an increasing delight every hour. It was neither. Living now was a matter of never-ending adjustment, self-sacrifice, and economy. And he hated them all. In spite of himself he was getting into debt, and he hated debt. It made a fellow feel cheap and mean. Even Helen was not what he had thought she was. He was ashamed to own it, even to himself, but there was a good deal about Helen that he did not like. She was not careful about her appearance. She was actually almost untidy at times. He hated those loose, sloppy things she sometimes wore, and he abominated those curl-paper things in her hair. She was willful and fretful, and she certainly did not know how to give a fellow a decent meal or a comfortable place to stay. For his part, he did not think a girl had any right to marry until she knew something about running a simple home. Then there was her constant chatter. Was she not ever going to talk about anything but the silly little everyday happenings of her work? A fellow wanted to hear something, when he came home tired at night, besides complaints that the range didn't work, or that the grocer forgot his order, or that the money was out.