"Tiresome boy! Do you call this 'obeying' me?"
"I did not promise to obey you."
"Oh, no; I forgot. How wickedly one-sided the marriage service is! That is one reason why I always declared I never would marry. One law for the man, and another for the woman; and in a civilized country! We might as well be Hottentots! And what a slur on a woman to have to change her name—often for the worse. I knew a Miss Pound who married a Mr. Penny."
David did not laugh. He had caught sight of the distant ships on Southampton water.
"Everybody made endless puns on the wedding-day," continued Diana. "I should have been in such a rage before the reception was over, had I been the bride, that no one would have dared come near me. It got on her nerves, poor girl; and when some one asked her just as they were starting whether she was going to take care of the Penny and leave the Pounds to take care of themselves, she burst into tears, and drove away, amid showers of rice, weeping! I think Mr. Penny must have felt rather 'cheap'; don't you? Well, anyway, I have kept my own name."
"You have taken mine," said David, with his eyes on the masts and funnels.
"How funny it will seem to get letters addressed: Mrs. David Rivers. If my friends put D only, it might stand for 'Diana.' David—" she turned her head suddenly, without lifting it, and her soft eyes looked full into his dark ones—"David, what shall you call me, when you write? I am no longer Miss Rivers, and you can hardly begin your letters: My dear Mrs. Rivers! That would be too formal, even for you! At last you will have to call me 'Diana.'"
David smiled. "Not necessarily," he said. "In fact, I know how I shall begin my letters; and I shall not call you 'Diana.'"
"What then?" she asked; and her lips were very close to his.
David sat up, and touched the springs of the window-blind.