With an unspoken anxiety they clung to the last moment of their meal; and when coffee had been partaken of, Maxine demanded yet another cup and, resting her elbows on the table, took her face between her hands.
"Ned! Will you not offer me a cigarette?"
He was all confusion at seeming remiss.
"My dear one! A thousand pardons! I did not think—"
"—That I smoked? Are you disappointed?"
He smiled. "It is one charm the more—if there is room for one."
He handed her a cigarette and lighted a match, his eyes resting upon her as she drew in the first breath of smoke with a quaint seriousness that smote him with a thought of the boy.
"Dearest," he said, suddenly, "I have been so happy to-day that I have thought of no one but ourselves, and now, all at once—"
Her eyes flashed up to his; she divined his thought, and it was as though she put forth all her strength to ward off a physical danger.
"Oh, mon cher, and was it not your day—our day? Would you have marred it with other thoughts?"