“No. But that’s different. It makes me so happy when you say it, as you can say it sometimes.”
“And don’t you think it makes me happy when you say it?” he retorted. “And you don’t say it half as often as I do, I’m sure.”
“Don’t I? But I feel it, Jack.” Her eyes sought his, and found them looking at her.
“Well—then—don’t you understand?” he asked.
But his voice was low, and it hardly reached her ears as the carriage rumbled along, though she knew that his lips moved, and she tried hard to catch the sounds. For a few seconds longer they looked into one another’s eyes. Then, without word or warning, Ralston took his wife in his arms and kissed her passionately again and again.
No one in the street could have seen, for the shades were half down and the evening light was waning. The sun had just set, and the dark red houses were floating in the afterglow, as everything seems to float when twilight lifts reality from the earth into its dreamland. And the carriage rolled and rumbled steadily along. But within it there was silence for a while, as heart beat with heart and breath breathed with breath.
“Jack—let me go to the Brights’,” said Katharine, suddenly, after what had seemed a very long time.
Her voice was quite changed. It sounded so soft and touching that Ralston could not resist it, being taken unawares.
“Dear—if you’d so much rather,” he answered, with hardly any hesitation.
“Then tell the coachman, please,” she replied at once, without giving him time to change his mind.