"Never mind," replied Mr. Henry Innocent, glancing at his companion in a way that showed the situation was by no means disagreeable to him. "He will very likely be home before we get back."
"But I am afraid you will find me dull company," she said, although shining eyes and an arch smile gave flat contradiction to the words.
"I don't think you need be afraid of that."
"Really! Why?"
"Because you must know it is not the case."
Thus and thus, as in the past, now, and always, your loving couples. The gabble-gabble reads tame in print, and we will listen no further. Let them have their fill of it; their giggles, their tiffs if they may; why should the stuff be written down? But this must be said: Flo had reason to believe that the affair of her heart was making progress. She thought that Henry was coming out of his shell, and the process was of deep interest to her.
Edgar had not returned when the couple reached home, and he was absent from the tea-table. The day had been rich indeed to Flo, and Henry was almost in as high spirits as his companion. When the evening bells pealed out for church he still dawdled in the undevotional atmosphere of the Wintons' drawing-room. Yet even for him they did not ring in vain. At their sweet sound the shutter of forgetfulness was raised from his mind, and he saw again a tiny country church perched on a green hill; a ragged file of homely folk trailing up the path and through the lych-gate, familiar faces all in the long-ago; and from the vicarage, with failing step, the grey-haired pastor of the flock, and by the old man's side the figure of a sweet woman, on which for a moment his mental vision lingered, to be rudely broken by—"A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Editor," from Flo.
The shutter came down with a rush.