The girl got up suddenly, almost roughly, and walked into the next room to fetch her mandoline.
“No! no!” she cried to herself with a cold fear, “not that, my God, not that!”
But when she returned with the instrument, she did not revert to the subject, but played and sang as usual to her husband’s admiration and delight.
They “did” Florence very thoroughly during the first week of their stay there, and were both completely tired.
“I must really stay at home to-morrow,” cried Hally one afternoon on returning to dinner, “Tony, I am regularly fagged out! I feel as if I had a corn upon every toe!”
“So do I,” replied her husband, “and I cannot have my darling knocked up by fatigue! We will be lazy to-morrow, Hally, and lie on two sofas and read our books all day! I have been thinking for the last few days that we have been going a little too fast! Let me see, child!—how long have we been married?”
“Six weeks to-morrow,” she answered glibly.
“Bless my soul! we are quite an old married couple, a species of Darby and Joan! And have you been happy, Hally?”
The tears of excitement rushed into her dark eyes.
“Happy! That is no word for what I have been, Tony; I have been in Heaven—in Heaven all the while!”