Love Lies Dreaming by C S Forester

we had our lunch, and the sky grew gloomy, but there was no relief from the heat. There was a prickling feeling under my clothes which told me what was coming. Thunder! And thunder always upsets Constance. She is not afraid, of course; it upsets her and gives her a headache. There was nothingfor it but to curse my lot and escort her upstairs and draw the curtains as she lay on the bed, see that she had eau-de-Cologne, and everything else that she wanted, and then, at her urgent command, to leave her to it.
    I sat in the veranda downstairs and smoked and fumed and wished that I did not feel so sleepy and irritable, while the thunder rolled backward and forward, and pretended that it was going, and then came back again with new strength, and the streaming rain brought no relief to the tense atmosphere. At four o’clock I sent up tea to Constance, but when, at five, the thunder showing no sign of abating I went up to her, the tea stood untasted at her side, and I knew that Constance was in a very bad way indeed. Normally the bare thought of tea will rouse Constance and make her capable of anything.
    Constance petulantly rejected my proffered attentions, turned away from me, and told me that she hated the sight of me and that the best thing I could do to help her recover was to get out of her sight and not to appear on her horizon until the storm was over. So I waited until the storm was over.
    Constance came down at dinner time, and I rose with alacrity when I saw her come into the room. We dined together again at a table for two. I was anxious about Constance, thoroughly and genuinely anxious, and all through dinner I did my best to make her at ease and to give her a rather better opinion of the world than the one she held at the moment. One idea I had tempted me sorely. The surest thing to set Constance on good terms with herself would be wine—I had in mind a good rich Burgundy, well-aired and grateful to the palate. But Constance hardly ever drank wine, and she might perhaps guess the reason of my pressing it on her. I was more influenced, however, by the thought that it would be a hateful after-memory all the rest of my life that I owed my wife’s first favors to wine—it savored horribly of a commercial traveler dirtily seducing some shopgirl.
    So we dined without wine, and all through the meal I watched Constance with growing anxiety. She was still distrait, and pale with the after effect of her headache. She tried bravely to meet my eyes, but she rarely succeeded. She crumbled her bread with nervous fingers, and she spoke in half a whisper. It was nota cheerful meal. And after dinner we sat in the veranda, and looked out over the river gray in the half light, and everything was very solemn and impressive—but not in the least conducive to the joining of a couple who had never been yet joined. And the mosquitoes came and bit us with devilish ingenuity. We sat, and we sat, and we sat, and neither of us would be the first to suggest going to bed. The lot fell on me in the end.
    â€œWell, what about it, old thing?” I asked.
    â€œWhat about what?” asked Constance in reply. Her tone was somber, and she gazed out over the river as she spoke.
    â€œBed, of course, dear,” I said, with all the casualness I could muster.
    Constance waited some seconds before she spoke.
    â€œIs that what you want?” she said.
    â€œI don’t want anything except that you should be happy,” I said. But my loose tongue ran away with me and I went on—“and make the most of your honeymoon.”
    I meant nothing by those last words, but Constance was not pleased with them. On the contrary.
    â€œAll day long,” said Constance, “you’ve been eying me and watching me and staring at me and fussing round me to see if there was going to be a chance tonight. At dinner it was hateful. I—I might as well be a cow or something like that. Something in a farmyard.”
    I was too