“By and by. You remember our bargain? We are not to grow tired like other people or to see too much of each other—enough of each other.”
“And so one of us is to be always miserable,” he said.
“Isn’t it better?” she asked. “Isn’t anything better than for either of us to be tired?”
“No, my beloved, it is not better. Will you not think it over? Will you—” he held her hand. “We are so happy, we shall be always. It will last, I swear it will—”
She gave herself a little shake as she went up in the lift. How perilously near giving in she had been! What would it be to her to lose the lover? A husband is a poor exchange. No, she would be firm.
The little flat looked very pretty, there were flowers everywhere. Her two maids welcomed her with smiles and blushes. Lunch was ready.
Mrs. Herbert went to take off her hat. Her own room was decorated with white flowers; it was a dear little white and green room.
“I should like to wash my hands,” said her husband meekly.
“Yes, you may. I will show you my room. Now that we are married I can show you everything. There is a delightful sensation of freedom as well as of bondage in matrimony.”
She took him into her room and left him there.
“That is my spare room,” she said, and pointed to a door. “It will be your room when I ask you to stay here.”
“There is something unusually novel in being asked to stay with one’s wife. It is as if you had me on approval.”
“Don’t say that,” she suggested. “No, you belong to me now.”
“I wish I did. You are like the angel with the drawn sword at the gate of the Garden of Eden. He was not placed there until after Eve had eaten the apple. I suppose I have had a bite of my apple.”
“You are anticipating. You are borrowing trouble. Wash your hands and come to lunch.”
He looked into the next room. It was yellow and white, and dainty and fresh. A row of his boots would disfigure it. His bachelor quarters seemed so dull in comparison. The faint smell of violets came from her clothes, he used her hair brush, and looked at her shoes lingeringly.
They ate their lunch and smoked afterwards.
“And how unlike matrimony. The average husband likes to use his authority at first, and says he will have the pictures altered, and he cannot sleep in a bed which runs from east to west, or from north to south or—”