Gladys flushed at that last word, though a happy little laugh rippled from her lips.
“Perhaps I shall appear more matronly by and by,” she said. “It is possible that putting ‘Mrs.’ before my name may make quite a change. How queer it will seem to be married and yet be Gladys Huntress still?”
Geoffrey’s face clouded, and a pang shot through his heart.
“I wish it could be otherwise, darling, I wish I had an honored name to give you,” he said, regretfully.
Gladys put up her hand and drew down his head until their lips met.
“Dear Geoff, forgive me,” she pleaded, in a tone of self-reproach, “I was very thoughtless to make such a speech. I shall be just as happy to be called Mrs. Geoffrey Dale Huntress, as anything else; my pride will not consist in my name, but in my husband.”
His arms closed about her more fondly.
He knew that she loved him with all the strength of her pure and noble nature—that she had chosen him from among the many admirers who would gladly have bestowed a proud name, as well as fortune, upon her, and that he ought to be content.
But he was not; it rankled, like a thorn in his heart, that he had no name to give her—that for want of one he was compelled to assume hers.
Neither he nor Gladys had ever been told of her adoption; both believed that she was August and Alice Huntress’ own child, and, somehow, a feeling of obligation, that was almost degradation, would now and then assail him, that he was obliged to identify himself in this way.