He had thought of everything that would conduce to her pleasure and comfort; and had sacrificed many an old-fashioned prejudice in planning a honeymoon that would appeal to her more youthful ideas of enjoyment. He did not care about travelling himself, and he hated foreign places and people. But he enjoyed giving her pleasure. When the car turned out of the gates and whirled down the white road, he took her in his arms and crushed her to him and rained ardent kisses on her unresponsive lips. "My darling!" he murmured. "My own darling! How good it is to be alone with you at last!" Thus Prudence left her girlhood behind her and started upon her married life. CHAPTER THIRTY TWO. One sorry satisfaction attends on circumstance which admit no prospect of great happiness or pleasurable development, disappointment and disillusion are alike avoided. During five dull years of married life Prudence passed from one stage to another of repugnance, remorse, and hostility, till she reached the final stage of apathetic resignation to the conditions of her life. The years, and Prudence's lack of any response, had considerably altered Edward Morgan's feelings towards her. The ardour of his passion had cooled, and a polite indifference mainly characterised his mental attitude in regard to his girl-wife. He remained proud of her, proud of her youth and of her beauty; but they were in no sense companions, or even faintly interested in each other's concerns. They went their separate ways within the first two years of the ill-assorted union. During the first year they quarrelled frequently. Mr Morgan, unaccustomed to opposition, found himself so constantly opposed to his young wife in small things that his temper suffered considerably. Their first serious difference was in the matter of open windows. Mr Morgan was unaccustomed to sleeping with his window open to the treacherous ills of the night air; Prudence was unaccustomed to sleep with them closed. She could not, she averred, sleep at all in an insufficiently ventilated room; she couldn't breathe without air. It transpired that Mr Morgan's respiratory organs worked better in a confined atmosphere. He ought to have belonged to the toad, or other hybernating species, Prudence reflected, but forbore to frame her reflections in speech. They spent some hours one cold night in the unprofitable exercise of jumping in and out of bed, alternately opening and shutting the window; until Prudence, recognising the absence of dignity in these proceedings, feigned slumber; and awoke in the morning with a headache, and the fixed resolve to have a separate sleeping apartment. Quarrels were frequent after that decision, which she adhered to firmly; until finally they arrived at that state of mutual indifference to which most unsuitably married people attain in time, when they are not sufficiently spirited to part, or are deterred by other considerations from taking this step.