"Yes! By gad, you do! You married me.... You're my wife. A wife should stay with her husband. You do belong to me."
He had his "Marmion" tone very pronouncedly.
Sophy said prettily:
"I think it would be truer to say we both 'belong.'"
"Well.... I'm not leaving you, am I?"
She reached out and took the sulky, cleft chin between her finger and thumb.
"Poor sing! Did dey 'buse it?" she said, as she addressed Dhu when he had one of his fits of collie-melancholy. But Loring jerked away his chin.
"Please don't treat me like a baby," he said stiffly. "I'm very far from feeling like one."
Sophy pondered a moment. Then she said:
"I hate to remind people of promises ... but you'll remember that you promised me I should have some time, every year, to myself——"