"And if it had dropped into your hands, you would have found, probably, that it was made only of green cheese," she replied.
For an instant he looked at her with a glance in which his humour seemed to cover a memory which she could not grasp.
"Oh, well, I'd have risked it!" he retorted almost gayly.
CHAPTER X
THE END OF THE PATH
Having decided that Laura was to be married on the nineteenth of December, Mrs. Payne had gathered not only the invitations, but the entire trousseau into the house three weeks before the date upon which she had fixed. Laura, who had at first entered enthusiastically into the question of clothes, had shown during the last fortnight an indifference which was almost an open avoidance of the subject; and the lively old lady was forced to conduct an unsupported campaign against dressmakers and milliners.
"It's fortunate, to put it mildly, my dear, that you have me to attend to such matters," she remarked one day, "or you would most likely have started on your wedding journey a dowd—and there can be no happy marriage," she concluded with caustic philosophy, "which is not founded upon a carefully selected trousseau."
"If his love for me depends on clothes, I don't want it," replied Laura in an indignant voice.
Mrs. Payne shook her false gray curls, until the little wire hairpins which held them in place slipped out and dropped into her lap.