"Pennies for the monkey, Robert," she cried; "a lot of pennies! And then we must have our lunch. May I have some chicken and one of those very droll, very stupid, English rice puddings? Please let me have one.... And may I kiss the dog? It is a nice little dog--quite as nice as Pensée's Fidelio. Now I am going to talk to the monkey."
She ran toward the little animal, who was shivering, pathetic and grotesque, in a military cap and red petticoat trimmed with yellow braid. The dog, which was a young pug with excellent points, gave Brigit, after many entreaties, his paw. She addressed the monkey in Italian, and laughed till she cried at its absurdities. Robert looked on, consumed by a sensation which he recognised, with much shame, as jealousy. He thought the pug dull and the monkey revolting. Yet she kissed one, and showered heavenly smiles on both.
"I did not know that you were so fond of animals," he said, as they walked to the hotel for lunch.
"I am not," she answered frankly, "as a rule. But when I am with you I feel so happy that I want to kiss everything--the ground, and the trees, and chairs, and poodle dogs, and the whole world!"
She looked at him, blushed a little, and waited some moments before she replied.
"I don't know," she said at last. "It must be because I am not in the habit of doing so. I am not accustomed to you yet. I keep thinking 'I shall wake up in a minute and he will be miles away.' Can't you understand? So I am pretending to myself all the time that you are not really here."
"No, dearest, you don't quite understand; and you are a little disappointed in me because I seem--I must seem--rather flippant. I daren't be serious--I daren't. I daren't believe that I am your wife."
She shook her head, and her whole face became clouded by the old, terrible, unnatural sadness which he knew so much better than her laughter.
"I am not used to joy," she said. "Perhaps, if we ever get to Heaven, our first impulse will be to run back again to Purgatory, where we are more at home!"
"You have too much wit, darling, to be happy anywhere!"
"No! no! I don't ask to be conventionally happy, but I want you always. That is all ... you, always, on any terms--on a rag-heap, in a storm, with jackals howling at us!"