'Oh yes—of course,' she said hastily, 'I forgot about your birthday.'
At that Wemyss stared at her harder than ever; incredulously, in fact. Forgot about his birthday? Lucy had forgotten? If it had been Vera, now—but Lucy? He was deeply hurt. He was so much hurt that he stood quite still, and the conductress was obliged, on discovering that she was no longer being followed, to wait once more for the honeymooners; which she did, clutching her shawl round her abundant French chest and shivering.
What had she said, Lucy hurriedly asked herself, nipping over her last words in her mind, for she had learned by now what he looked like when he was hurt. Oh yes,—the birthday. How stupid of her. But it was because birthdays in her family were so unimportant, and nobody had minded whether they were remembered or not.
'I didn't mean that,' she said earnestly, laying her hand on his breast. 'Of course I hadn't forgotten anything so precious. It only had—well, you know what even the most wonderful things do sometimes—it—it had escaped my memory.'
'Lucy! Escaped your memory? The day to which you owe your husband?'
Wemyss said this with such an exaggerated solemnity, such an immense pomposity, that she thought he was in fun and hadn't really minded about the birthday at all; and, eager to meet every mood of his, she laughed. Relieved, she was so unfortunate as to laugh merrily.
To her consternation, after a moment's further stare he turned his back on her without a word and walked on.
Then she realised what she had done, that she had laughed—oh, how dreadful!—in the wrong place, and she ran after him and put her arm through his, and tried to lay her cheek against his sleeve, which was difficult because of the way their paces didn't match and also because he took no notice of her, and said, 'Baby—baby—were his dear feelings hurt, then?' and coaxed him.
But he wouldn't be coaxed. She had wounded him too deeply,—laughing, he said to himself, at what was to him the most sacred thing in life, the fact that he was her husband, that she was his wife.
'Oh, Everard,' she murmured at last, withdrawing her arm, giving up, 'don't spoil our day.'