'We have had such a delicious day!' she was saying. 'I think there is nothing, after all, like a Scotch moor. Do look at those ducks, Michael; how angry they are with Booty, and how ridiculous they look waddling over those wet stones!'
'I was thinking of something else,' he replied; and his tone made Audrey look up rather quickly. 'Do you remember your tirade on the subject of single blessedness, my Lady Bountiful, and how freedom outbalanced all the delights of wedded bliss? I recollect we were on the moors then, and Kester was with us, and I took out my pocket-book and wrote down the date. Well, I will be magnanimous and not ask an awkward question. Six weeks of married life is not such a long time, after all.'
But she interrupted him with some impatience:
'Michael, how can you recall such nonsense? But of course you are only doing it to tease me. As though I were not much happier than I was then!'
'Are you really happier, Audrey—really and truly, my darling?'
'Oh, Michael, what a question! Am I not your wife? Is not that answer enough? Do you think I would change places with any other woman in the world, or even with my old self?'
And as he looked at her bright face he knew that she was speaking the truth, and that Audrey Burnett so loved and reverenced her husband that she was likely to be a happier woman than Audrey Ross had been.