It was Sarah's idea that all the others should leave the house first, and that then we should slip away quietly to the train by ourselves. So at the last, while I was waiting for my bride to come downstairs, Mrs. Dround and I happened to be alone. She looked pale and worn, as if the people had tired her. She ordered the servants to take away the great bunches of roses that filled every nook in the room.
"They are too sweet," she explained. "I like them—but in the next room."
Her fastidiousness surprised me, and, as always, I began to wonder about her. Suddenly she leaned forward and spoke swiftly, intently:—
"I hope you and Sarah will be happy together—really happy!"
It was an ordinary kind of thing to say, but beneath the plain words there seemed to lie something personal.
"We shall be happy, of course!" I answered lightly. "There's nothing against it in sight."
"Ah, my friend, you can't count that way! Happiness is hard to get in this world, and you pass it by at odd corners and never know it." She smiled a little sadly, and then added in a more ordinary tone: "Sarah tells me that you are to be away only a few days. Does business tempt you so much that you can't resist it even now?"
"Well, I expect to love Sarah just as much when I get back to work. Business is a man's place, as the house is a woman's. Take either out of their places for long, and something is likely to go wrong with them."
She laughed at my satisfied wisdom.
"Are you so needed over there in the office?"