“It is too absurd,” she declared, smiling, “my having this nurse here. Really, there is nothing whatever the matter with me. I should have gone to the theatre, but you see it is no use.”
She passed him the letter which she had been reading, and which contained her somewhat curt dismissal. He laughed as he tore it into pieces.
“Are you so sorry, Zoe? Is the stage so wonderful a place that you could not bear to think of leaving it?”
She shook her head.
“It is not that,” she whispered. “You know that it is not that.”
He smiled as he took her confidently into his arms.
“There is a much more arduous life in front of you, dear,” he said. “You have to come and look after me for the rest of your days. A bachelor who marries as late in life as I do, you know, is a trying sort of person.”
She shrank away a little.
“You don’t mean it,” she murmured.
“You know very well that I mean it,” he answered, kissing her. “I think you knew from the very first that sooner or later you were doomed to become my wife.”