He looked at her with amazement and not without a trace of disapprobation, for her eyes were dancing. Was she actually making jokes about his misery—to say nothing of hers—if indeed she felt any? He was learning more about women every minute.
Now she was practically giggling. He frowned deeper and sighed. Perhaps, perhaps everything was for the best, after all. He might as well tell her so, too. No reason to make himself wretched for something she seemed to think hilariously humorous.
"Well, Georgia, I must say," he began portentously—'twas the voice of the husband—almost. She could hear him complain. Whereat she simply threw back her head and laughed again.
He noticed, as he had often noticed, that her strong little teeth were white and regular, that her positive little nose was straight and slender, and the laughter creases about her eyes reminded him of the time she thought it such fun to be caught in Ravinia Park in the rain without an umbrella.
So presently he tempered his frown, then put it away altogether, and his eyes twinkled and he turned the corners of his mouth up instead of down.
"Oh, dear me," he mocked, half in fun and half not, "as the fellow says, 'we can't live with 'em and we can't live without 'em.'"
But she, who had been reading him like a book in plain print, asked, "Come, tell aunty your idea of a jolly Sunday in the park with your best girl. To sit her on a bench and make her listen while you mourn for the universe?"
"But what are we going to do about it?" he asked solemnly, "that's what I want to know."
"Do?" she responded with a certain gay definiteness, "do nothing."
"You mean not see each other any more at all?" he asked desperately. "I absolutely refuse."