"We are so happy as we are," she observed, presently, "that it seems to me to be very silly to hurry to another state of things. Old married people always look back to their courting days as to the happiest period of their lives. Personally I don't in the least want to be married for years to come. We can be dear friends and companions, and can meet when we please——"
"That is not nearly enough for me," he interrupted. "It is like offering a starving man a caramel to expect me to be satisfied with seeing you occasionally. I must not only see you all the time, but you must belong to me and I to you. My friend Robert Browning, whom you must grow to read and love, has glorified married love, which is the only happy love, in some of the finest lines ever written. Listen!
"'Life will just hold out the proving both our powers, alone and blended;
And then, come next life quickly! This world's use will have been ended.'"
A sob rose in Laline's throat as Lorin, holding her hand close within his arm, bent his head to murmur the words in her ear. The picture they presented before her mind's eye was tantalisingly happy, and yet it was just such perfect happiness that she must nerve herself to banish from her life. Tears blinded her as, with lowered head, she walked on by his side.
They had by this time reached the High Street, deserted at this late hour on Sunday night but for a small group of dirty loiterers outside a public-house, from the doors of which a man was apparently being forcibly thrown.
Laline, who had a feminine terror of drunken men, clung closer to Lorin's arm; but as he moved quickly to the outer edge of the pavement in order to give the group a wide berth, she felt him suddenly start violently, and looking up, perceived that he was frowning heavily and that he wore a look of deep annoyance.
Following the direction of his eyes, Laline instantly understood the cause of his vexation; for the man who, lividly pale and madly intoxicated, was struggling in the grasp of three others, shouting curses and dealing murderous blows to right and left of him, was Wallace Armstrong, Lorin's cousin and her husband.
Tightening the pressure of her hand within his arm, Lorin was hurrying Laline past the shameful spectacle, when she suddenly stopped him.
"Leave me," she whispered, with pale lips—"go to him! Take him away before he does more mischief!"