Dominie Dean by Ellis Parker Butler

WHEN it was announced that Lucille Hardcome was to marry B. C. Burton, Riverbank was interested, but not surprised. The banker went up and down the hill, from and to his business, quite as usual, but with a little warmer and more ready smile for those he met. He accepted congratulations gracefully. After the wedding, which was quite an event, with a caterer from Chicago, and the big house lighted from top to bottom and every coach the town liverymen owned making half a dozen trips apiece, there was a wedding journey to Cuba. When the bridal couple returned to Riverbank Lucille drove B. C. to and from the bank in the low-hung carriage, and B. C. changed his abode from his own house to Lucille's. Otherwise the marriage seemed to make little difference. For Dominie Dean it made this difference: the only trustee who had, of late years, shown any independence lost even the little he had shown. Having married Lucille, he became no more than her representative on the board of trustees.

Never a forceful man, Burton became milder and gentler than ever after his marriage. He had not married Lucille under false colors (Lucille had married B. C.; had reached for him and absorbed him), but, without caring much, she had imagined him a wealthy man. When it developed that he had almost nothing but his standing as a suave and respected banker, Lucille, while saying nothing, gently put him in his place, as her wedded pensioner. She had hoped she would be able to put on him the burden of her rather complicated affairs, but when she guessed his inefficiency as a money-manager for himself, she gave up the thought. Lucille continued to manage her own fortune. She financed the house. All this made of B. C. a very meek and gentle husband. He did nothing to annoy Lucille. He was particularly careful to avoid doing anything to annoy Lucille. He became, more than ever, a highly respectable nonentity.