"Oh dear no."
"I suppose we've stopped to take more passengers up?"
"I expect so."
Then, after a pause, June said, "Do you know, dear, I think I've finally decided about the drawing-room. I think I shall have it all white—every bit——"
From her white gloves to her gypsophylla petticoats, she was a girl any young man would have been glad to spend his shillings on, and her house was going to be as smart and complete as herself. Her father was coming down very handsomely for her wedding, and in addition to his other gifts, was going to lay out the gardens and the greenhouse for them. Counting her silver, tapping her flower-pots to see which was in need of water, trimming bits of raffia with her scissors and putting drops of gum into her geraniums, June would be exactly in her right place. She was already attending a Cookery Class, and had all her household linen marked. And already they were promised any number of presents. "Presents are so useful," she had said to John Willie, "because then you have them, and so often they're the kind of thing you'd put off buying for yourself." It was all going to "do" very splendidly.
"I say," said John Willie by and by, "we don't seem to be moving."
"The Wheel?" June asked.
"Yes. But it will go on in a minute, I expect."
"I hope it won't stop long," June replied.
John Willie also hoped it would not stop long, but for the life of him he couldn't have told you why he hoped so. Indeed he tried to smother the hope. He tried to smother it because he had an obscure feeling that—that—well, if a reason can smile, that his reason for not wishing to stay up there too long was quietly smiling at him. It seemed to tell him that he and everything about him were enviably all right—safe—thoroughly and entirely comfortable—need have no fears for the future—and that all would continue to be just as comfortable and safe and altogether all right until he should come to die, in a best bed, with eiderdowns, and frilled pillow-cases, and hot bottles, and the certainty of a handsomely appointed funeral a few days later. Few were as sure of their future as that. John Willie was one of the lucky ones....