"I wasn't joking."
"Not when you began; but with me all your troubles shall end in jokes, and every tear in a smile. Claudia, I never knew you so alarmingly serious before."
"Well, I won't be serious any more. The fatal deed is done!"
"And I may say 'Claudia' now without fear of any one?"
"You will be able to say it for about the next fifty years. I hope you won't get tired of it. Eugene, try to get tired of me last of all."
"Never while I live! You are a perpetual refreshment."
"A lofty function!"
"And the spring of all my life. Let us be happy, dear, and never mind fifty years hence."
"I will," she said; "and I am happy."
"And, please God, you shall always be so. One would think it was a very dangerous thing to marry me!"