“Good-morning, Dick—no, really, I didn’t know you for an instant in such a sad suit.”
He looked again at the gay tresses and hat. “You’ve never dressed so charming before, dearest.”
“I like to hear you praise me in that way, Dick,” she said, smiling archly. “It is meat and drink to a woman. Do I look nice really?”
“Fie! you know it. Did you remember,—I mean didn’t you remember about my going away to-day?”
“Well, yes, I did, Dick; but, you know, I wanted to look well;—forgive me.”
“Yes, darling; yes, of course,—there’s nothing to forgive. No, I was only thinking that when we talked on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday about my absence to-day, and I was so sorry for it, you said, Fancy, so were you sorry, and almost cried, and said it would be no pleasure to you to be the attraction of the church to-day, since I could not be there.”
“My dear one, neither will it be so much pleasure to me . . . But I do take a little delight in my life, I suppose,” she pouted.
“Apart from mine?”
She looked at him with perplexed eyes. “I know you are vexed with me, Dick, and it is because the first Sunday I have curls and a hat and feather since I have been here happens to be the very day you are away and won’t be with me. Yes, say it is, for that is it! And you think that all this week I ought to have remembered you wouldn’t be here to-day, and not have cared to be better dressed than usual. Yes, you do, Dick, and it is rather unkind!”
“No, no,” said Dick earnestly and simply, “I didn’t think so badly of you as that. I only thought that—if you had been going away, I shouldn’t have tried new attractions for the eyes of other people. But then of course you and I are different, naturally.”