Long we walked together. "What inspired you to this? This is best of all," I said.
"Why?" said Vesty, glowing and beautiful.
"Because now I see again that you are 'Vesty.' And my Lady of M—— was a possible dream always. But Vesty seemed unattainable.
"That rose color," I added, looking at her cheeks, "I never saw anywhere except at certain sunsets—you know where."
For we of the Basin—however wilfully inclined sometimes, as Captain Pharo—at heart bow down to our wives, and make love to them, long, long after we are married: quite, indeed, until death do us part, as all true Basins should.
"Paul!" said Vesty. Now "Paul" was really my name, with considerable before and after it, but never mind all that.
"Paul!"
"Well?" I said.
Confused with the rose-color blushes: "I forgot," she murmured, "what I was going to say."
No, she had not forgotten it! Her face was eloquent; only she cannot talk with that fluency with which she can look beautiful and sigh. Especially when she would express anything of deep feeling, she has a way of brushing a speck of dust from my right shoulder, and letting her hand rest there a moment, that tells me worlds, but would not go for much, I admit, on a smart female rostrum.