"The new dances?"
"Some of them," a dimple disturbed her smooth cheek. "Not the very new one."
"Well, I'll teach you. But you will only dance with me," he stated with finality.
Absurdly happy in the jealous prohibition, she went to make ready.
Elsie Murray had possessed one dress that Elsie Adriance never had worn. It was a year old, one brought from her distant home, but so simply made that its fashion would still pass. It was an afternoon, not evening gown; a clinging, black sheath of chiffon and net, covering her arms, but leaving bare the creamy pillar of her throat. The cloudy darkness echoed the dark softness of her hair and threw into relief her clear, health-tinted beauty of complexion. When she wore it into the room where her husband waited, he greeted her with a whistle of surprise and pleasure.
"Some lady!" he approved. "What did you mean—no clothes? Have I seen that before?"
"No. Do you like me this way?"
He put his hands on her shoulders, looking down into her eyes.
"Of course. But don't you know it doesn't matter what you wear or have?" he asked. "We have got away beyond that, you and I."
They walked to the ferry; two miles through the cold darkness. But they found the journey a pleasure, not a hardship. Elsie had taught Anthony her art of extracting amusement from each experience. On the ferryboat, they had sole possession of the deck. "Mollycoddles," Elsie called the passengers who huddled into the cabins. The wind painted her cheeks and lips scarlet, as she leaned over the rail to hear the crunch of drift ice under the boat's sides. The two evoked quite a sense of arctic voyage, between them. Anthony gravely insisted he had seen a polar bear on one tossing floe. They were happy enough to relish nonsense; and more excited by the coming meeting and place of meeting than either would have admitted.