When they finally whirled off in the stuffy little cab to the railway station they were like a couple of children in their happy abandonment to the expected pleasure.
The opera—had they ever gone to any opera before? How inconceivably beautiful and brilliant the house, the lights, the gay assemblage to the erstwhile dwellers of the suburbs! Together they scanned the emblazoned women in the boxes, and pointed out to each other those whom they recognized. And when Gounod’s delicious music stole into their hearts, and Mrs. Waring sat with her bride roses in one hand, and the other tucked secretly into Henry’s, under cover of her wrap, was ever any woman happier? Had ever any girl a lover more devoted or more bubbling over with fun? Romeo and Juliet—what were they to a real married couple of to-day? Then the supper afterward with the gay throng at the Waldorf—the reckless disregard of the midnight train—could there be dizzier heights of revelry?
It was when they stood outside on the ferry-boat coming home that Mrs. Waring spoke at last the thought that had lain nearest her heart all the evening. They were out alone in front, the cold night wind blew refreshingly, the dark water plashed around them, and across its black expanse the colored lights gleamed faintly from the New Jersey shore. Mrs. Waring leaned a little closer to her husband as they stood there in the night and the darkness.
“Dear,” she murmured, “I can’t tell you how lovely the evening has been; but you know what has made it so to me, that has been making me so very happy? The opera and the supper would have been nothing without it. Darling, it’s because you thought of it all yourself.”
A sudden tension in the arm on which she leaned startled Mrs. Waring. She bent forward to look up into her husband’s face, with a swift suspicion.
“Henry?”
“Well, Doll.”
“Didn’t you think of it, yourself?”
“Nobody could have enjoyed our little fun together more than I have, you know that, Doll; and nobody could want to make you any happier than I do. What’s the use of picking the whole thing to pieces now and spoiling it all?”
“Henry Waring, you haven’t answered me. Did you remember that this was our wedding-day, or did you not? Who was it told you to take me out to-night?”