"Taking you for the bride; and a very pretty one!" returned Mark, gallantly.
Caroline laughed; a little all-conscious laugh of vanity. She laid her beautiful bonnet of real lace and marabouts--and for which the milliner would assuredly charge £10--on a side-table, and threw off her costly white lace mantle. The folds of her silk dress, its colour the delicate bloom of the spring lilac, rustled as she went back to the window.
"Only think, Mark, we have been married nearly a year! It will be a year next month." Mark stood with his face close to the window. He was looking at the trees in the Green Park, their leaves playing in the golden light of the setting sun. Caroline flirted a few drops on her handkerchief from the miniature essence-bottle dangling from her wrist, and raised it to her carmine cheeks. The day's excitement had brought to them that rich bloom so suspiciously beautiful.
"I declare there's Barker!" exclaimed Mark. "I thought he'd be in."
Mr. Barker was dashing up the street in a cab, as fast as the horse's legs would go. He had been at the offices all day, doing duty for Mark. He saw them at the window, and gave them a nod as he leaped out. Mark looked at his watch and found it wanted yet some time to dinner. They sat down now, all three together, leaving the window to take care of itself. There was always so much to say when Barker was there. He talked so fast and so untiringly; present doings and future prospects were so good; and Caroline was as much at home in it as they were. They had had a splendid day in the City, Barker said volubly, except for grumbling. A hundred, or so, groaning old disappointed fellows had been in, who wanted to embark in the Wheal Bang and make their fortunes, but there were no shares to be had for love or money, and they were fit to bite their fingers off. Altogether, nothing could be more smooth, more delightful than affairs, and Barker had received news from the mines that morning promising loads upon loads of ore in a month or so's time.
Mark rubbed his hands. "I say, Barker, what do you say to a quiet little dinner at Blackwall tomorrow?" cried he. "I and Carine are thinking of driving down. Will you come?"
"Don't mind if I do," returned Barker. "What, time?"
"Well, not very late. The evenings are not so light as they were. Suppose we say"----
Before the hour had left Mark's lips he was stopped by a commotion. A sound as of much talking and bumping of boxes in the hall below: of boxes that appeared to be coming into the house. Caroline went to the window and saw a cab drawn up to the door, a last trunk being taken off it, and three band-boxes in a row on the pavement.
"Why, who can it be?" she exclaimed.