"That wish has been already fulfilled—by the greatest miracle that ever happened."
Fay nestled closer to me. "It isn't very polite of you to say that your loving me is anything in the miracle line."
"I didn't. It is in your loving me that the miracle comes in. I didn't set the dial ten degrees forward: you set it ten degrees backward."
My wife looked up at me with laughter in her wonderful eyes. "And you want me to do the trick again with Annabel? Really, Reggie, that is a little bit too thick! And besides, she wouldn't like it. The dial of Annabel is quite a different make from the dial of Ahaz. It is one of those that can't be put back even five minutes without upsetting all the machinery and making the strikes go wrong, like our dining-room clock. And I wouldn't upset Annabel's machinery for worlds! I should feel like Cutler if I did."
"And even Cutler didn't upset it this year, if I remember rightly."
Fay shook her head. "No, the forget-me-not bed this last spring was the last word in forget-me-not beds. It was a thing of beauty and a joy for the end of April and quite the whole of May. I wanted to bathe in it, if you remember, but Annabel thought I might get drowned or something, and so I refrained."
"Annabel has her funny little ways, I admit," I said, feeling that this was the moment for a word in season on my sister's behalf; "but she is the best and kindest woman in the world, and she is really devoted to you, my darling, though she doesn't always understand you."
"She does not like me anything like as much as she likes Frank."
"She really does—underneath her quiet manner; but she has always been a most undemonstrative woman," I persisted, feeling bound to defend my sister against an accusation of such arrant folly.
Fay smiled. "What a darling old ostrich it is!" she said, stroking my hand. "Does it like to keep its dear head in the sand, and go on pretending to itself that rocks are palm-trees and dry streams wells of water? Then it shall, if it likes. But all the same, my Reggie, it's rather stupid of you always to pretend that things are what you want them to be; because they aren't, and you'll have a tremendous waking up some fine morning."