“Could you indeed?” replied her husband, putting his arm round her slender waist.
“Geoffrey, how dare——Reginald!” she gasped, dropping all the pears.
“I may dare, may I not?” said he, taking her in his arms and giving her twenty kisses. “Look here,” said he, smiling at her indignant eyes and crimson cheeks, “I’ve just had a letter from you, my darling,” producing the letter and hurriedly telling her the story.
“And the other one I wrote to Afghanistan?” she asked breathlessly.
“That I never heard of till now; the Afridis made short work of our letters.”
“Then you have never had a line from me till to-day?” she cried, backing towards the wall and looking at him with dilated eyes.
“Never, since I left Cannes.”
“Then oh, Regy, what must you have thought of me?”
“Just what I have been asking myself, what can you have thought of me? No wonder you called me harsh, cruel, and tyrannical; such names were too mild a term for me. What an unmanly, vindictive wretch I must have appeared! And you, you richly deserve the name of the ‘patient Grizzel.’ Don’t you think so?” drawing her towards him by both hands. “Come, tell me what you thought of me for never answering your letter.”
Too overwhelmed to speak, she stood dumb before him, with both her little trembling hands in his.