Before she could answer, he loosened her hands from his neck and said, 'Come and look at yourself in the glass. Come and see how small you are compared to the other things in the room.' And with his arms round her shoulders he led her to the dressing-table.
'The other things?' laughed Lucy; but like a flame the thought was leaping in her brain, 'Now what shall I do if when I look into this I don't see myself but Vera? It's accustomed to Vera....'
'Why, she's shutting her eyes. Open them, little Love,' said Wemyss, standing with her before the glass and seeing in it that though he held her in front of it she wasn't looking at the picture of wedded love he and she made, but had got her eyes tight shut.
With his free hand he took off her hat and threw it on to the sofa; then he laid his head on hers and said, 'Now look.'
Lucy obeyed; and when she saw the sweet picture in the glass the face of the girl looking at her broke into its funny, charming smile, for Everard at that moment was at his dearest, Everard boyishly loving her, with his good-looking, unlined face so close to hers and his proud eyes gazing at her. He and she seemed to set each other off; they were becoming to each other.
Smiling at him in the glass, a smile tremulous with tenderness, she put up her hand and stroked his face. 'Do you know who you've married?' she asked, addressing the man in the glass.
'Yes,' said Wemyss, addressing the girl in the glass.
'No you don't,' she said. 'But I'll tell you. You've married the completest of fools.'
'Now what has the little thing got into its head this time?' he said, kissing her hair, and watching himself doing it.
'Everard, you must help me,' she murmured, holding his face tenderly against hers. 'Please, my beloved, help me, teach me——'