“Nothing,” she replied, her eyes still shining. “I was only thinking how wonderful it all is!”
And she drew her arms gently about her husband’s neck.
II
A sudden gust of wind whipped one of King’s papers off the table where he sat figuring opium problems. It went skimming across the floor, and Stella thrust out a foot to intercept its flight: a spontaneous act which set her husband musing in a rather odd way.
“You’ve a remarkably narrow foot, haven’t you Stella?” he said. “I noticed it even that first time we met in the street.”
“Have I?” she laughed, fluttering a little—a mannerism her husband still possessed the magic potency to inspire.
He seemed to be studying her foot with an abrupt and quite absorbed interest.
“It’s not very often—” He broke off and glanced up with a rather furtive smile. “I mean—you must wear about a double A, don’t you?”
“How did you guess?” she laughed. She adored Ferdinand in this sort of personal, gently intimate mood. It somehow, very subtly, compensated for the splendours not yet come to pass....
King eyed her shoe attentively. There was even something trancelike in his gaze. When he spoke again it was with a touch of far-away dreaminess. “Double A,” he half chanted, “with a short instep—yes—and one of those Standish heels they’re using such a lot now....” He glanced up again, this time with a faint start, and found Stella gazing at him amused, perplexed a little.