“You’ll have Joan. I don’t mean to cross that bridge.”
“I should like my wife not to be a slave to causeless fears. Failure in such little battles means loss to one’s self.”
“We’ll get ready, George, as soon as you like. But I shall not cross the bridge.”
George smiled, and seemed to yield. Dulcibel thereupon went off to her dressing-room. She kept all the rest waiting for her, as a matter of course. After the lapse of seventeen years, buttons had still to be sewn on her boots at the last moment.
“I wish Leo were here. Well, it will not be long,” was George’s remark on starting.
The walk to the valley was full of recollections for him and Dulcibel. They paced it together most of the way, the two girls keeping in front, except where there was space for four abreast. Then Joan always fell back immediately to her father’s side, and Nessie to her mother’s.
George had a book of poetry in his pocket—Trench’s Poems once more. But he had not brought it this time at Dulcibel’s suggestion. Seventeen years of married life had quite convinced Dulcibel that an unpoetical wife could not become poetical for her husband’s sake. She often asserted decisively now that he must take her as she was; and George most wisely did so, expecting no unreasonable things.
The Shaking Bridge was reached at last; hanging still upon its wires and chains, vibrating at a touch. And the stream flowed below, and the trees hung lovingly over, and the banks were rich with luxuriant, dewy moss.
Dulcibel stood still, and beckoned Nessie to her side.
“We are going to wait here,” she said resolutely.