“But, my Nita, when I see you giving yourself up to gloomy speculations about ghosts and omens.”
“Oh, that means nothing. When one has a very precious treasure one must needs be full of fears. Look at misers; how nervous they are about their hidden gold. And my treasure is more to me than all the gold of Ophir—infinitely precious.”
She sprang up from her low chair, and leaned over the back of his to kiss the broad brow which was lifted up to meet those clinging lips.
“Oh, my love, my love, I never knew what fear meant till I knew the fear of parting from you,” she murmured.
“Put on your habit, Nita. We will go for a ride in spite of the sun. Or what do you say to driving to Dorchester, and storming your cousins for a lunch? I want to talk to Mr. Dalbrook about Skinner’s bill of dilapidations.”
Her mood changed in an instant.
“That would be capital fun,” she cried. “I wonder if it is a breach of etiquette to lunch with one’s cousins during one’s honeymoon?”
“A fig for etiquette. Thomas,” to an approaching footman, “order the phaeton for half-past eleven.”
“What a happy idea,” said Juanita, “a long, long drive with you, and then the fun of seeing how you get on with my strong-minded cousins. They pretend to despise everything that other girls care for, don’t you know; and go in for literature, science, politics, every thing intellectual, in short; and I have seen them sit and nurse Darwin or Buckle for a whole evening, while they have talked of gowns and bonnets and other girls’ flirtations.”
“Then they are not such Roman maidens as they affect to be.”