“How are the children?” Justin asked his wife.
“They’re all right.” She paused, and then said: “If you are to look over those books, I suppose we can’t go to the Calenders’ to-night.”
“No.” The dark line of the pier struck athwart the dusky light and divided the windows in two. “At least, I cannot, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go.”
“You know that I will not go without you.”
“Other women do.”
“Well, I will not.”
“What a foolish girl!” His tone was fond. “Then—take care!” The boat had bumped into the dock; in the struggling press of the stampeding crowd, Lois clung to her husband’s arm and he strove to ward off the crush from her. When they were at last over the gang-plank, joining in the hurrying, straggling procession toward the train, he looked at her with tender solicitude.
“You shouldn’t come out on the boat so late as this. Was it too much for you?”
“Oh, no, no! I do this alone lots of times.” She felt so vividly happy that her breathlessness was hardly an annoyance as they dodged in front of the incoming drays of another boat and waved aside the impeding newsboys crying the evening papers.
She foresaw that they would be separated in the train, and found voice enough to whisper to him: