Even as he watches her, putting this echoed interrogation, he sees the radiance breaking through the cloud his question had gathered, as a very strong sun breaks through a very translucent exhalation.
"But now?" she repeats vaguely, and smiling to herself, forgetful of his very presence beside her—"But now? Did I say 'But now?' Ah, here they are back again!"
CHAPTER XXIII.
"I am going to turn the tables on you," says Amelia next morning to her lover, after the usual endearments, which of late he has been conscientiously anxious not to scant or slur, have passed between them, very fairly executed by him, and adoringly accepted and returned by her; "you are always arranging treats for me; now I have planned one for you!"
She looks so beaming with benevolent joy as she makes this statement, that Jim stoops and drops an extra kiss—not in the bond—upon her lifted face. "Indeed, dear!" he answers kindly, "I do not quite know what I have done to deserve it; but I hope it is a nice one."
"It is very nice—delightful."
"Delightful, eh?" echoes he, raising his brows, while a transient wonder crosses his mind as to what project she or anyone else could suggest to him that, at this juncture of his affairs, could merit that epithet; "well, am I to guess what it is? or are you going to tell me?"
Amelia's face still wears that smile of complacent confidence in having something pleasant to communicate which has puzzled her companion.