“Wife!”
“Husband!”
They sat down before the fire, hand in hand, and talked of the light things that swim to the top, and eddy round and round on the surface of our deepest moods. They made merry over the old minister's perturbation, which Bartley found endlessly amusing. Then he noticed that the dress Marcia had on was the one she had worn to the sociable in Lower Equity, and she said, yes, she had put it on because he once said he liked it. He asked her when, and she said, oh, she knew; but if he could not remember, she was not going to tell him. Then she wanted to know if he recognized her by the dress before she lifted her veil in the station.
“No,” he said, with a teasing laugh. “I wasn't thinking of you.”
“Oh, Bartley!” she joyfully reproached him. “You must have been!”
“Yes, I was! I was so mad at you, that I was glad to have that brute of a station-master bullying some woman!”
“Bartley!”
He sat holding her hand. “Marcia,” he said, gravely, “we must write to your father at once, and tell him. I want to begin life in the right way, and I think it's only fair to him.”
She was enraptured at his magnanimity. “Bartley! That's like you! Poor father! I declare—Bartley, I'm afraid I had forgotten him! It's dreadful; but—you put everything else out of my head. I do believe I've died and come to life somewhere else!”
“Well, I haven't,” said Bartley, “and I guess you'd better write to your father. You'd better write; at present, he and I are not on speaking terms. Here!” He took out his note-book, and gave her his stylographic pen after striking the fist that held it upon his other fist, in the fashion of the amateurs of that reluctant instrument, in order to bring down the ink.