"Monte," she pleaded, "you must n't go back on me like that—now. I suppose women can't help getting the fidgets once in a while and thinking all sorts of things. I was tired. I 'm not used to being so very gay. And I let myself go a little, because I thought in the morning I 'd find you the same old Monte. I 've known you so long, and you always have been the same."
"It was a pretty exciting day for both of us," he tried to explain.
"How for you?"
"Well, to start with, one does n't get married every morning."
He saw her cheeks flush. Then she drew back.
"I think we ought to forget that as much as possible," she told him.
Here was his opportunity. The way to forget—the only way—was for him to continue with his interrupted schedule to England, and for her to go on alone to Étois. It was not too late for that—if he started at once. Surely it ought to be the matter of only a few weeks to undo a single day. Let him get the tang of the salt air, let him go to bed every night dog-tired physically, let him get out of sight of her eyes and lips, and that something—intangible as a perfume—that emanated from her, and doubtless he would be laughing at himself as heartily as he had laughed at others.
But he could not frame the words. His lips refused to move. Not only that, but, facing her here, it seemed a grossly brutal thing to do. She looked so gentle and fragile this morning as, picking up the violets, she half hid her face in them.
"You mean we ought to go back to the day before yesterday?" he asked.
"In our thoughts," she answered.