Again and again he went at it, stumbling, falling, and never once clearing it, though it was a marvel to Stargarde that with his great agility he could not do so.
While she stood smiling at him, some one came around the corner of the street. “Ha, ha!” she heard in a laughing voice, “how much for the exhibition? Has matrimony gone to your head or your heels, Camperdown? I beg your pardon, Mrs. Camperdown, I did not see you,” and a young man who was a friend of Valentine’s took off his hat with a flourish.
“Hurrah, I’ve cleared it!” vociferated Camperdown with a final leap, after which he approached them; “but your soup kitchen sha’n’t lose, Stargarde. How do you do, Dana?”
Mr. Dana saluted him with a succession of teasing remarks. “Is it an eviction? If not, what do you mean by dragging your wife through the streets at this hour? This comes of setting yourselves up to be models for your neighbors—refusing wedding presents and not taking a honeymoon trip. You’ll come to a bad end. Why don’t you leave him, Mrs. Camperdown?”
“Any news, Dana?” inquired Camperdown agreeably.
“Nothing but your marriage, with which the town is ringing. All the little newsboys are running about patting their stomachs in satisfaction.”
“My wife wished to give everybody a feast,” returned the physician, “though she did not feel much like entering into it herself on account of her recent affliction.”
“She looks horribly pale to-night,” said the younger man, lowering his voice so that Stargarde who was standing at a little distance from them should not hear.
“That’s why I have her out,” said Camperdown with a sudden burst of confidence; “I feel like those classic fellows who used to get entangled with goddesses, thinking that they were mortal women. That wife of mine is so ultra-human that though she is happy herself she can’t go to sleep till she knows that everything is straight in her old home.”
“I’m glad you haven’t been beating her,” said Mr. Dana serenely, “for as you say, she is beyond the human. Who takes charge at the Pavilion now that she has left it?”