“You are a host in yourself.”
“You have had friendships, flirtations even,” she said, rebukingly; “and I have known nothing about them, and you have made me tell you every single thing that ever happened to me. Now I am ready to hear your adventures. Please begin.”
CHAPTER XX.
THE SECRET OF HER LIFE.
She moved to a chair close beside him, and, leaning back, closed her eyes so that he could the more easily make his confession.
There was a long silence, then she opened her eyes with a jerk. To her disappointment, he sat quietly smoking.
“You are a secretive, unkind, cruel husband,” she said, warmly. “Aren’t you ever going to tell me all your secrets?”
“Perhaps,—when you fall in love with me,” he said, teasingly. “It wouldn’t be proper now.”
Nina, too, became animated by a spirit of mischief. “Tell me about that rich widow,” she said, aggravatingly, “who had a nice place on the Hudson, and wanted you to go visit her with a thought of marriage in her mind.”