"Jacqueline, dear, has anything unpleasant happened to disturb you since I last saw you?"
She made no reply.
"Won't you tell me, dear," he insisted uneasily.
"I will tell you this, Jim. Whatever may have occurred to disturb me is already a matter of the past. Life and its business lie before us; that is all I know. This is our beginning, Jim; and happiness depends on what we make of our lives from now on—from now on."
The stray lock of golden hair had fallen across her cheek, accenting the skin's pallor through the veil. She rested her elbow on the window ledge, her tired head on her hand, and gazed at the sunset behind the Palisades. Far below, over the grey and wrinkled river, smoke from a steamboat drifted, a streak of bronze and purple, in the sunset light.
"What has happened?" he muttered under his breath. And, turning toward her: "You must tell me, Jacqueline. It is now my right to know."
"Don't ask me."
His face hardened; for a moment the lean muscles of the jaw worked visibly.
"Has anybody said anything about me to you?"