“Yes; this society business. I’m sick of it. Sometimes it makes me—well, it makes me long for those old days in Waverly, when we were so happy together. Even if we were poor we had each other, didn’t we?”
“Yes.”
“And we had our ambitions and our foolish aspirations. They helped to make us happy.”
She drew closer to him. “But they weren’t foolish, Douglas. That is, yours weren’t. And think how you’ve realized all you hoped for already!”
Douglas Briggs drew a long breath. “Yes, I’ve got what I wanted. But the reality is considerably different from what I thought it was going to be. I suppose that’s true of nearly every kind of success. We have to pay for it some way. Why, Helen, there are whole days when you and I don’t have five minutes together!”
“That’s because you have so much to do, dear. I used to mind it at first. But then I saw it couldn’t be helped.”
“And you’ve been too good to complain. I’ve understood that all along.”
“I didn’t want to stand in the way of your work, Douglas. I could afford to make a few sacrifices, after all you’d done for me.”
“Never mind. Just as soon as I can break away from Washington we’ll have a good long holiday. If Congress doesn’t hang on till Summer, perhaps we can take a little trip abroad. We’ll go to Scotland and hunt up those people of yours that your father was always talking about. Then we’ll run over to Paris and perhaps see a bit of Switzerland. We’ll send the children with Miss Munroe to Waverly and then we’ll pretend we’re on our honeymoon again. You need the rest and the change as much as I do, dear—more. We’ll forget about everything that has bothered us since we began to be prosperous. We’ll be boy and girl again, Helen. Why, we haven’t grown a day older since we were married—in our feelings, I mean—and to me you’re just as young and as pretty as you were that afternoon in your father’s study when I told you I couldn’t get along without you.”
She had allowed her head to rest on his shoulder. “Douglas!” she whispered. “Don’t be so silly.”