Polly went to bed at nine, and Rachel sat down to read and to wait. It was past ten o'clock before she heard her husband's footstep.
She ran to meet him at the door. He put his arm round her as after hanging up his hat they made their way into the dining-room.
"How did the meeting go off?" she asked.
"Excellently. And I had congratulations from all sorts of people on my marriage. They are arranging a large At Home in the Parish Room in your honour, at which I am told their congratulations are to take a more tangible form. They are wonderfully hearty people, and I'm impatient for you to know them."
They sat down to supper and Rachel found that she had no difficulty in persuading her husband to eat both pies. He was so engrossed with the account of the meeting that he never noticed what he was eating or that his wife had to content herself with bread and cheese. Neither did he question as to where the pies came from. In fact he was hardly conscious that he was eating pies at all! Rachel felt sure that it would have made no difference to him if he had had only bread and cheese like herself to eat. His enthusiasm for his work was as good as food to him. She loved him for it, but she wondered at the same time if he had forgotten that this was the first evening they had spent in their home, and she was conscious of a little pain at her heart to which she would pay no attention.
But suddenly he looked across at her as if he had just awakened to the fact of her presence, saying, "What could I want more! God—work—and you! It is all more wonderful than I even anticipated."
And Rachel registered a vow in her heart; "I will never worry him with my stupid fears and littlenesses, and I will pray night and morning to be made more worthy of him;" but her sensitive spirit did not fail to notice that "you" came last.
