The Travelling Thirds by Gertrude Atherton

During the journey to Toledo Catalina stared sulkily out of the window or slept with her head against the side of the car. She ignored Over's attempts to converse until, with chilling dignity, he retired to the opposite end of the compartment and wondered how he could have thought of love in connection with a bad-tempered child. He was delighted at the prospect of reunion with the orthodox Moultons, and understood something of their serene contempt for originality. It is true that Catalina asleep, with the deep vermilion on her cheeks, her tumbled head drooping, looked so innocent and lovely that she set him to wondering regretfully why there was no such thing as perfection in woman; and from thence it was but a step to imagine Catalina with the qualities and training that would make her the ideal of man. There was no harm in indulging one's self in idyllic imagining, by way of variety, Over concluded; doubtless it was good for the soul.

Whatever the motive, his imagination performed unaccustomed feats during the drowsy afternoon, while his companion slept and the other occupants of the car, few in number, smoked and said little. It pictured Catalina ten years hence; she would then be thirty-three, an age he had always found sympathetic in woman; she would have seen the world, have adapted herself to many new conditions, and in the process learned self-control, pared off the jagged edges of her egoism, and supplemented her beauty with a distinction of manner and style that would compel the homage of the best societies of the world.