Marian pushed herself closer against him and presently said dreamily: “So much happiness, such utter happiness which no one, nothing can take away. I wonder when and how the first storm will come?”
“It needn’t come at all—not for a long, long time. And when it does—we can weather it, don’t you think?”
During the next two months they were together more than they had been in the spring. He imposed day office hours upon himself and did no work in the evenings except the correcting of editorial proofs which he had sent to him at the house, at the theatre, or at whatever restaurant they were dining. And at midnight he called up the office on the telephone and talked with Mr. King or Mr. Vroom about the news in hand and the programme for presenting it in the next morning’s paper.
But as “people”—meaning Marian’s friends—returned to town, they fell into the former routine. It was in part his doing, in part hers. He was now thirty-seven years old and his mind, always of a serious cast, was intolerant of trifles and triflers.
Marian’s range of interests was shallower but much wider than his. Her beauty, her cleverness, her tact caused her to be sought. She invited many to their house and accepted more and more invitations. At first she never went without him. But he was sometimes compelled by his work to send her alone. He rarely went except for her sake—because he thought going about amused her. And he was glad and relieved when she began to go without him, instead of spending the evenings in solitude.
“There is no reason why you should punish yourself and punish me because you had the ill luck to marry a working-man,” he said. “It cannot be agreeable to sit here all by yourself evening after evening. And it depresses me when I am at the office at night to think of you as lonely. It makes me happier in my work—my pleasure, you know—to think of you enjoying yourself.”
“But aren’t you afraid that some one will steal me?” she asked, laughingly.
“Not I.” He was smiling proudly at her. “If you could be stolen, if you could be happier anywhere than with me, you have only to let me into the plot.”
“There are some women who would not like that.”