“Well, Mrs. Prescott-Merivale?”
“You’ve admitted I’m a married woman,” she exclaimed. “Now surely you can tell me what you’ve been doing since August and where you’ve been.”
“I thought very fondly that you were without the curiosity of every woman,” said Michael. “Alas, you are not!”
“Michael, you’re perfectly horrid to me.”
“Don’t be too much the young wife,” he advised, with mocking earnestness.
“I won’t listen to anything you say, until I know where you’ve been. Of course, if I hadn’t been so busy, I could easily have found you out.”
“Not even can you sting me into the revelation of my hiding-place,” Michael laughed.
“You shan’t stay with us at Hardingham unless you tell me.”
“By the time you come back from your honeymoon, I may have wonderful news,” said Michael. “Oh, and by the way, where are you going for your honeymoon? It sounds absurd to ask such a question at this hour, but I’ve never heard.”
“We’re going to Compiègne,” said Stella. “I wrote to little Castéra-Verduzan, and he’s lent us the cottage where you and I stayed.”