“That was the name of Dr. Sevier’s wife.”
“But he doesn’t hear me singing.”
“No; but it seems as if he did.”
And they sang no more.
They entered a broad, open avenue, with a treeless, grassy way in the middle, up which came a very large and lumbering street-car, with smokers’ benches on the roof, and drawn by tandem horses.
“Here we turn down,” said Richling, “into the way of the Naiads.” (That was the street’s name.) “They’re not trying to get me away.”
He looked down playfully. She was clinging to him with more energy than she knew.
“I’d better hold you tight,” she answered. Both laughed. The nonsense of those we love is better than the finest wit on earth. They walked on in their bliss. Shall we follow? Fie!
They passed down across three or four of a group of parallel streets named for the nine muses. At Thalia they took the left, went one square, and turned up by another street toward home.
Their conversation had flagged. Silence was enough. The great earth was beneath their feet, firm and solid; the illimitable distances of the heavens stretched above their heads and before their eyes. Here was Mary at John’s side, and John at hers; John her property and she his, and time flowing softly, shiningly on. Yea, even more. If one might believe the names of the streets, there were Naiads on the left and Dryads on the right; a little farther on, Hercules; yonder corner the dark trysting-place of Bacchus and Melpomene; and here, just in advance, the corner where Terpsichore crossed the path of Apollo.