"Yes, and you did not give me any answer," he replies, with equal sharpness.
"Because I cannot for the life of me recollect," reply I, looking up for inspiration to the stars, which the great bright lamps make look small and pale. "I must do a sum: what day of the month is this?—the 31st? Oh, thanks, so it is; and we were married on the 20th. It is ten days, then. Oh, it must be more—it seems like ten months."
I am looking him full in the face as I say this, and I see a curious, and to me puzzling, expression of inquiry and laughter in the shady darkness of his eyes.
"Has the time seemed so long to you, then?"
"No," reply I, reddening with vexation at my own bêtise; "that is—yes—because we have been to so many places, and seen so many things—any one would understand that."
"And when do you go home?"
"In less than three weeks now," I reply, in an alert, or rather joyful tone; "at least I hope so—I mean" (again correcting myself)—"I think so."
Somehow I feel dissatisfied with my own explanations, and recommence:
"The boys—that is, my brothers—will soon be scattered to the ends of the earth; Algy has got his commission, and Bobby will soon be sent to a foreign station—he is in the navy, you will understand; and so we all want to be together once again before they go."
"You are not going home really, then?" inquires my companion, with a slight shade of disappointment in his tone; "not to Tempest—that is?"