"No, that's too pretty," she cried jealously. "Haven't you something you don't like that God would?"
A little rummaging discovered a gold pencil-case which seemed to fulfill this demand--at least on Adair's side--and it forthwith followed the ring. Then they sought the open air.
"Now, at last I feel really married," said Phyllis gaily, as they climbed back into the carriage. "What a strange, dizzy, safe sort of feeling it gives one. And just think I could hug you right now before the driver, and that old lady with the basket, and that little boy blowing his baby brother's nose--and nobody could say Boo!"
She waited for him at the stage-door.--Page [284]
She alarmed Adair by pretending to carry the hugging into effect until he tried to push her away, and told her to behave. She replied with a delighted, bubbling outcry over her new freedom: "Oh, but I'm married now, and can do just what I like, and can have breakfast in bed with you every morning, and put my shoes out with yours to be blacked, and I'm Mrs. Adair, and have a wedding-ring, and a certificate with forked lightning on it!" She exultantly popped up her feet on the seat in front, showing a shocking amount of black silk stocking with a bravado that made him grab at her skirt to pull it down; and in the ensuing romp there was more silk stocking still, and so much happy laughter on her part, and scandalized protestation on his that the driver turned round, and they were all but disgraced.
The narrowness of the escape sobered her, and for the rest of the drive she was demureness itself. What a joy it was to recline with half-shut eyes, and let the air fan away all the troubled memories of the night before! Mind and body craved repose, and mind and body found it in the cradle-like movement of the carriage. Adair was very tired, too, and willing enough to share his pretty companion's mood. Deliciously conscious of each other, though more asleep than awake, they abandoned themselves to the fresh bright morning, and breathed in deep drafts of contentment.
On their return to the hotel, the carriage stopped and Tommy Merguelis jumped up on the step. His perennial grin, and withered, foolish face was not unclouded by a certain anxiety. He dropped a bunch of roses into Phyllis' lap, with an awkward compliment which got as far as she was a rose herself, and then ended midway with a terrified giggle.
"I'm awful sorry," he said, addressing Adair, "but you're wanted at the theater, Mr. Adair, and I've been chasing around after you for the last half-hour. They want you to rehearse right off with Miss Clarke, and coach her a bit in the business."
"Why, what's the matter with De Vere?" asked Adair, surprised.