"You flatter me, M. Demetrius, since I cannot take credit for your clever inventions."
"We are all in the same boat, madame."
"You, I, and----?" she glanced at him inquiringly.
"Your husband."
"Can you not grasp the fact that I am a widow? When I have a husband," she smiled meaningly, "do you think he will sanction Mr. Berring rowing in the boat you mention?"
Suspicious people are the easiest to gull, and the smile, rather than the words, changed the gloomy doubter into a confiding child. Her enforced diplomacy was gaining her ground already. "My angel! you mean----"
Leah cleverly shortened a possible rhapsody. "Of course I do. Ah!" with a sentimental sigh; "what have I done to be so doubted?"
"Never by me, I swear. Believe me, soul of my soul----"
"Hush!" she raised an admonitory finger to check dithyrambic wooings at an untoward moment. "We are yet in the wood."
"Out of it, while here--yes, here, where you so sweetly promised we should become one;" his voice sank tenderly.