“My worry. It has flown away, vanished. I shall be happy again.”
“Are you not always happy now?” he asked, curiously.
“The last few days—yes. I can scarcely keep my feet on the ground. I wish to fly, but I shall soon be dull. Always it is like that. For a few days I could embrace every one, then I wish to slap the whole world in the face.”
“Don’t do it, you will get slapped back.”
“I am getting old,” said the girl, seriously. “An old, old lady told me this afternoon that a day will come when I will see nothing good in life, and will want to die. Do you feel like that, ’Steban?”
“All the time.”
“Story-teller, you do not. You are not hateful and cynical.”
“Yes, I am. You don’t know me yet.”
“You sha’n’t be cynical,” she said, energetically. “I will not have it,” and, rolling her handkerchief in a ball, she threw it at him.
This was a challenge to a frolic, and he rose agreeably. Nina was surveying the door and her chances of getting to it without interruption. They were few, but still she could try. She made a feint of going around one side of a chair, when, in reality, she was going the other, but her ruse was unsuccessful. Her husband was watching her with the attentive eyes of a cat amused at, and bent on capturing, an unfortunate mouse, delivered into his claws by destiny. Rising, he laid his arm across the door,—an effectual barrier to her outward progress.