It was impossible for him to stop her. For the first time in her life her tongue was loosened; she talked floods of nonsense, happy, enchanted nonsense. But Louis would not lose his diagnostic eye.
"But didn't you know before?" he persisted.
"No. Do you think I'd have been such a selfish hog as to keep it to myself?"
"But you've read biology—you ought to have known how things happen."
"Oh, bother biology! Who ever thought of biology meaning themselves? I didn't, anyway. I never think things in books refer to me. Fancy a skeleton meaning oneself! Mustn't a skeleton feel immodest? Louis, when I'm dead, do find some way of disintegrating me, will you? I couldn't bear to look as immodest as a skeleton does."
After awhile she became quiet, but still bubbling over with irrepressible happiness. Louis was unusually gentle as they sat talking in whispers as though afraid the stars would hear their secret as they came out one by one and looked at them.
"I can't believe it, yet," he said at last.
"Don't worry, then. You will soon enough. Louis—how long is it?" she said, puckering her forehead. He made calculations.
"More than six months," he said.
"Oh, what a long time! I don't believe I'll ever be able to wait so long as that. It's like being told the king is coming—and having to wait six months. It is a long time to wait till he's ready, isn't it?"