"I have been effervescing ever since you came to the office after me, and I find now that the froth is off, I'm getting to the solid facts in the case, and, well I don't want to say a word to spoil your joyous day, but I'm worried, 'Bringer of Song.'"
"Worried?" cried Leslie. "Why? You don't think he wouldn't be pleased?
You don't think he might not be—responsive, do you?"
"Think of the past years of neglect, insult and humiliation!" suggested
Douglas.
"Think of the future years of loving care, reparation and joy!" commented Leslie.
"Please God they outweigh!" said Douglas. "Of course they will! It must be a few things I've seen lately that keep puzzling me."
"What have you seen, Douglas?" questioned Leslie.
"Deals in real estate," he answered. "Consultations with detectives and policemen, scientists and surgeons."
"But what could that have to do with Nellie Minturn?"
"Nothing, I hope," said Douglas, "but there has been a grimness about Minturn lately, a going ahead with jaws set that looks ugly for what opposes him, and you tell me they have been in opposition ever since they married. I can't put him from my thoughts as I saw him last."
"And I can't her," said Leslie. "She was a lovely picture as she came across the silver moss carpet, you know that gray green, Douglas, her face flushed, her eyes wet, her arms full of those perfectly beautiful, lavender-pink fringed orchids. She's a handsome woman, dearest, and she never looked quite so well to me as when she came picking her way beneath the dark tamarack boughs. She was going to ask him to go with her to take her flowers to Elizabeth, and over that little white casket she intended—Why Douglas, he couldn't, he simply couldn't!"