'I think that was rather amusing—don't you?' he asked, suddenly smiling.
'Oh yes—very,' said Lucy eagerly, smiling too, delighted that he should switch off from solemnity.
He kissed her again,—this time a real kiss, on her funny, charming mouth.
'I suppose you'll admit,' he said, laughing and squeezing up her face into a quaint crumpled shape, 'that either you're my wife or not my wife, and that if you're my wife——'
'Oh, I'm that all right,' laughed Lucy.
'Then you share my room. None of these damned new-fangled notions for me, young woman.'
'Oh, but I didn't mean——'
'What? Another but?' he exclaimed, pouncing down on to her mouth and stopping it with an enormous kiss.
'Monsieur et Madame se refroidiront,' said the woman, turning round and drawing her shawl closer over her chest as a gust of chilly wind swept over the terrace.
They were honeymooners, poor creatures, and therefore one had patience; but even honeymooners oughtn't to wish to embrace in a cold wind on an exposed terrace of a château round which they were being conducted by a woman who was in a hurry to return to the preparation of her Sunday dinner. For such purposes hotels were provided, and the shelter of a comfortable warm room. She had supposed them to be père et fille when first she admitted them, but was soon aware of their real relationship. 'Il doit être bien riche,' had been her conclusion.