Major Erlton, therefore, gave no more pansies, and his sentiment died down into a sort of irritable wonder what the little woman would be at. The unreality of it all struck him afresh on this particular Monday: as he watched her daintily removing the few fallen petals; so he left her to finish her task while he walked about. The cemetery was a perfect garden of a place, with rectangular paths bordered by shrubs which rose from a tangle of annual flowers like that around the Gissings' house. This blossoming screen hid the graves for the most part; but in the older portions great domed erections--generally safeguarding an infant's body--rose above it more like summer-houses than tombs. Herbert Erlton preferred this part of the cemetery. It was less suggestive than the newer portion, and he was one of those wholesome, hearty animals to whom the very idea of death is horrible. So hither, after a time, she came, stepping daintily over the graves, and pausing an instant on the way to add a sprig of mignonette to the rosebud she had brought from a bush beside the cross; it was a fine, healthy bush which yielded a constant supply of buds suitable for buttonholes. She looked charming, but he met her with a perplexed frown.
"I've been wondering, Allie," he said, "what you would have been like if that baby had lived. Would you have cared for it?"
Her eyes grew startled. "But I do care for it! Why should I come if I didn't? It isn't amusing, I'm sure; so I think it very unkind of you to suggest----"
"I never suggested anything," he protested. "I know you did--that you do care. But if it had lived----" he paused as if something escaped his mental grasp. "Why, I expect you would have been different somehow; and I was wondering----"
"Oh! don't wonder, please, it's a bad habit," she replied, suddenly appeased. "You will be wondering next if I care for you. As if you didn't know that I do."
She was pinning the buttonhole into his coat methodically, and he could not refuse an answering smile; but the puzzled look remained. "I suppose you do, or you wouldn't----" he began slowly. Then a sudden emotion showed in face and voice. "You slip from me somehow, Allie--slip like an eel. I never get a real hold---- Well! I wonder if women understand themselves? They ought to, for nobody else can, that's one comfort." Whether he meant he was no denser than previous recipients of rosebuds, or that mankind benefited by failing to grasp feminine standards, was not clear. And Mrs. Gissing was more interested in the fact that the mare was growing restive. So they climbed into the high dog-cart again, and took her a quieting spin down the road. The fresh wind of their own speed blew in their faces, the mare's feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground, the trees slipped past quickly, the palm-squirrels fled chirruping. He flicked his whip gayly at them in boyish fashion as he sat well back, his big hand giving to the mare's mouth. Hers lay equably in her lap, though the pace would have made most women clutch at the rail.
"Jolly little beasts; aint they, Allie?"
"Jolly altogether; jolly as it can be," she replied with the frank delight of a girl. They had forgotten themselves innocently enough; but one of the men in a dog-cart, past which they had flashed, put on an outraged expression.
"Erlton and Mrs. Gissing again!" he fussed. "I shall tell my wife to cut her. Being in business ourselves we have tried to keep square. But this is an open scandal. I wonder Mrs. Erlton puts up with it. I wouldn't."
His companion shook his head. "Dangerous work, saying that. Wait till you are a woman. I know more about them than most, being a doctor, so I never venture on an opinion. But, honestly, I believe most women--that little one ahead into the bargain--don't care a button one way or the other. And, for all our talk, I don't believe we do either, when all is said and done."