Forward—at the far end of the train, so to speak—Ethel stood waiting for him. He wondered whether, as a surprise, she had changed her mind and brought along one of the children, after all. It was a vain thought because, though he had several times hinted it would be so nice for the boys, she had insisted this was to be his and her holiday and no one else’s. She would be flushed and hot after the trip from Boston, but her look would be eager, her whole bearing youthful, as young and attractive and erect as ever; for her figure was still that of a girl, and even her face gave little hint that she was over thirty. After being away from her—seeing her without the children, especially—he was always struck by how young she looked and congratulated himself on her appearance, the more so because he was not unaware that in the frankly appraising eyes of other men he was a very lucky husband. He was; yet how surprised they would be if they could know how sometimes a hot and helpless exasperation amounting to anger rose up in him as he watched the fastidious way in which she ate an olive, or as he saw her licking an envelope (the little tongue darting in and out like a lizard’s), or when she asked the garageman questions which she could not hope to understand nor he explain. . . . But perhaps they would not have been surprised after all; for these were the unspeakable things in any marriage—unspeakable literally, because, while a man could speak of any number of characteristics or habits he did not like in his wife, he could not say to her: I hate the way you eat an olive or lick an envelope. To a woman in love with her husband, this would be the equivalent of his having said: I hate everything about you—I hate you.

The enormity of the thought astonished him, and then almost made him smile; for of course no such thing was true. It was merely one more instance of the precariousness of marriage, of the misunderstandings to be watched for and the dangers to be skirted. Which is exactly why one did not speak of those tiny exasperations which could seem, at times, to overshadow one’s whole happiness. For that matter, the episode past and the cause of the exasperation removed, the anger was nonexistent too, even in memory; and a man could be astonished at the thought, as he was astonished now, and promise himself that the next time it arose, he would be reminded that he had smiled about it in retrospect and could do so again. He got up and went down to the Men’s Room for a cigarette.