Troubled by his silence, her color mounting in a vivid sweep, the girl tried to turn aside from his approach.
"We must have a little cat," she essayed diversion. "I hope you like kittens? Purrs should go with crackling logs. Not an Angora or a Persian; just a pussy."
Her voice died away. Very quietly and firmly Adriance had taken her into his arms.
"I've made a bad beginning," he made grave avowal. "I am learning how much I need to learn. And I don't deserve my luck in having you to teach me."
She rested quietly in his arms, as if conceding his right, but she did not look at him. She was very supple and soft to hold, he found. There breathed from her a fresh, faint fragrance like the clean scent of just-gathered daffodils, but no perfume that he recognized. She was individual even in little things. He wondered what she was thinking. The uneven rise and fall of her breast timed curiously with the pulse of his heart, as she leaned there, and the fact affected him unreasonably. He did not want her to move; warmth and content were flowing into him. Content, yet—— Suddenly, he knew; a man confronted with a blaze of light after long groping.
"Elsie!" he cried, his voice sounding through the room his great amazement. "Elsie! Elsie!"
She looked at him then, putting her two little hands on his breast and forcing herself back against his arm that she might read his face. But he would not have it so, compelling her submission to the marvel that had mastered him. What the church had essayed to do was done, now. Anthony Adriance had taken a wife.
"I love you," he repeated, inarticulate still with wonder, his lips against her cheek. "Why didn't you tell me? I love you."
He never forgot that she met him generously, with no mean reminder of his tardiness. She took his surrender, and set no price on her own. Her lips were fresh as a cup lifted to his thirst for good and simple things; he thought her kiss was to the touch what her eyes were to the gaze, and tried clumsily to tell her so.
When they finally remembered the delayed supper, that meal was in need of repairs. And because now Adriance would not suffer the width of the room between himself and his wife, he insisted in aiding her in the process, thereby delaying matters still further. Nine o'clock had been struck by the clock in the corner when they sat down to table, lighted by the new lamp. It had a garnet shade, that lamp, upon which its purchaser received the compliments of Mrs. Adriance.