"No, I won't," she whispered. "But I'm so happy I feel as though I should like to tell everyone."
"There's no need," I answered smiling.
"Oh, Hugh, I don't want to disgrace you!" she exclaimed, in real alarm.
"Otherwise, so far as I am concerned, I shouldn't care who knew."
People smiled at her. Women came up and took her hands. And on the fourth day the formidable New Yorkers unexpectedly thawed.
I had once thought of Maude as plastic. Then I had discovered she had a mind and will of her own. Once more she seemed plastic; her love had made her so. Was it not what I had desired? I had only to express a wish, and it became her law. Nay, she appealed to me many times a day to know whether she had made any mistakes, and I began to drill her in my silly traditions,—gently, very gently.
"Well, I shouldn't be quite so familiar with people, quite so ready to make acquaintances, Maude. You have no idea who they may be. Some of them, of course, like the Sardells, I know by reputation."
The Sardells were the New Yorkers who sat next us.
"I'll try, Hugh, to be more reserved, more like the wife of an important man." She smiled.
"It isn't that you're not reserved," I replied, ignoring the latter half of her remark. "Nor that I want you to change," I said. "I only want to teach you what little of the world I know myself."
"And I want to learn, Hugh. You don't know how I want to learn!"