"Yes, the wife I cared for would have made me supremely happy, but vive la bagatelle! I want to know when I am to tie this knot?"
"Whenever she wishes, of course," she answered.
"By the Lord, no! If she gets me, she's got to take me when I choose."
Percy went up to him and put her hands in his: "She'll be a good wife, and, dear Sheldon, you'll be a good husband to her."
He looked at her curiously, then answered, "I'll try: I'll begin by letting her set the hanging--no, I mean the wedding--day. Norval, I know you'll be good to our little girl--better, likely as not, than the rest of us would have been had we got possession of her. Only remember, old fellow, the shadows must never come to her through you, or some of us will make a shadow of you. Would you mind my coming around sometimes to see the little woman? If you'll let me come and spend an evening now and then with you both, it will keep me from getting utterly down-hearted, and maybe will make me a better husband to the future Mrs. Sheldon Wilber. I'll never come without sending word to know if I may." And the poor fellow took himself away.
"How they love you, dear! It's strange you took me, and I thought I was conferring a favor on you! I'm ashamed to remember it now, but it was so."
"Yes, I know"--and she laughed--"but it's not strange, Ross. Any woman would have chosen you: I have always heard of your successes with women. And you know it was take or lose when you gave me my chance. I had but one choice; it was not likely you would drop your handkerchief before me a second time; so I took you quick, before some other woman caught you."
She kept a light, gay tone thus far, standing the other side of the grate from him, but when he came near as if to draw her toward him, she said hurriedly, "These boys have been too much for me, and tried me terribly. If you will not care, Ross, I think I'll say 'Good-night,' though it's early. Don't stay in, if you would like to go to your club or anywhere, because it is our first evening. You see, I am going to desert you first. It's part of the compact, you know, that I am never to be in your way."
"Oh, Percy," he said, in a very boyishly aggrieved tone, "I don't want to go anywhere where you are not."
"You will soon get tired of that, Ross. But I'm glad you don't want to go to-night: I doubt your being quite able to walk much in the evening. Yet I feel as if I must say 'Good-night' and get myself in the dark. Why? I'm unstrung. The newness of my life with you, the traveling, this coming home with you to a place where I am to know either joy or woe, and all this talk with Harry and Sheldon, have been almost more than I could bear;" and her lip quivered. "It's all I have been able to do this last hour to keep from crying, and I do hate to cry before people." The long-suppressed emotion of all these weeks had broken bounds and she shook with sobs, while every nerve seemed quivering, and all she said was, "Ross, Ross! please forgive me! I am so sorry to be so foolish!" And though he strove by every tender method to comfort and soothe her, it was in vain; and at length, really frightened, he carried her to the little room she had appropriated for herself, and as tenderly as a mother, though as shyly as a girl, put his poor little done-out wife in her bed, too weak to resist his kind services, indeed, scarcely noticing them.