“Happy punishment!” was the thought which flashed through Ravant.
But he grimly put it out, and for one more last moment the old, brutal Ravant tried to come back. Alas! she was on the floor there before him, her elbows on his knees, her face, halting between smiles and tears, upraised to his, looking out of its glory of living hair, watching the portents there.
And when they did not develop fast enough toward joy, she locked her hands behind his neck suddenly and drew his head down, to the peril of a dislocation.
“You must stay to support your beggar wife; don’t you see?—won’t you understand?—and perhaps her beggar—child!”
“What!” cried Ravant, everything else out of his head in an instant.
“I always keep my biggest trump for the last, dearest. All women do, don’t they? It’s so lovely to play it then—when every one thinks all is lost. Oh, beloved! smile, laugh, shout with me! How can you go away now when you have a beggar wife to support, and a beggar—ch—! Ah! ha! ha!”
How could the old, brutal Ravant come back? He never did. How could he go? He did not.
“But we will not sell your house. We will go back, even if it must be in the steerage, and work together, live together, happily ever after!”
“Dominus vobiscum!” cried Ravant’s happy wife, leaping into his arms.
And all this, save the steerage, they did. And at this very moment they are living as happily as they planned.