She was horribly shocked. The word "husband" was sacrosanct, and such trifling seemed to her next door to a sacrilege.
"Oh, do let's talk of something sensible," she exclaimed petulantly. "Wherever there is a pretty woman, there will people tell untruths about her. What is it to us? We don't care, do we?"
Bob shook his head; he liked to pose as a man of the world.
"I think we ought to stand by her," he said. "Suppose you had been in the case, Nellie; wouldn't you expect me to stand by you?"
"Of course I should—but you wouldn't do it; you would begin to talk about widows instead. I'm quite sorry I came with you—"
He looked up appealingly.
"But we're having such a jolly time together. You don't mean to say you would sooner have been with old Gordon Snagg?"
"I would sooner be with somebody who talked about sensible things, so there! Are you going to stand here all day looking down at nothing? I didn't come out for that; I came to ski. Perhaps you would like to go back to the paper-chase?"
Bob hastened to say that he hoped the paper-chase might be swallowed up by an avalanche before he overtook it. Having insisted upon the point, he seized her hand without so much as a by-your-leave or any other unnecessary absurdity, and began to run down the slope with her. Here was something to live for; they were as two who had conquered the world and returned its proud heights upon wings of azure.
Down, down, the skis hissing in the splendid snow, the keen air bringing hot blood to their cheeks, the speed surpassing dreams of flight—so toward the woods which would hide them again, and permit them to forget that towns and hamlets, to say nothing of the inhabitants thereof, existed. Both were gasping for breath as they sailed down the last of the steeps and swung to the left at the bottom. Both were too sensible of the obvious fitness of things to utter one complaint when Miss Nellie tripped and fell right into Master Bob's arms upon the very verge of the wood. Is not the left an unlucky turn to make at any time? But who believes in luck when a pretty girl tumbles headlong into his arms and refuses to budge an inch?