“Don’t be too sure. And you?”
She smiled prettily.
“I’ve often thought what a nice husband you would make.”
And then she had taken his hand in her lap and played with it.
“And where shall we live when we are married?” he had asked her, and she had said she did not care.
“Anywhere, as long as there are lots of people to amuse me.”
She sat there on the gate, her light hair blowing under the wide brim of her hat, laughing down at him, her face bright with happiness. She was so small, so graceful. Light as heatherdown, she would run a gay motif through the solemn movement of his career.
“You are like a fairy,” he said, “like a mischievous little elf. I think I shall call you that—Elfkin.”
“Oh, what a pretty name, Roland—Elfkin! How sweet of you!”
They talked so eagerly together of the brilliant future that awaited them that they quite forgot the lateness of the hour, till they heard across the evening the dull boom of the dinner gong. They both gasped and looked at each other as confederates in guilt.