For a few minutes more they remained in that benign, unforgettable shadow; and then, very slowly, with Alf’s arm about Emmy’s waist, and Emmy’s shoulder so confidingly against his breast, they began to return homewards.  Both spoke very subduedly, and tried to keep their shoes from too loudly striking the pavement as they walked; and the wandering wind came upon them in glee round every corner and rustled like a busybody among all the consumptive bushes in the front gardens they passed.  Sounds carried far.  A long way away they heard the tramcars grinding along the main road.  But here all was hush, and the beating of two hearts in unison; and to both of them happiness lay ahead.  Their aims were similar, in no point jarring or divergent.  Both wanted a home, and loving labour, and quiet evenings of pleasant occupation.  To both the daily work came with regularity, not as an intrusion or a wrong to manhood and womanhood; it was inevitable, and was regarded as inevitable.  Neither Emmy nor Alf ever wondered why they should be working hard when the sun shone and the day was fine.  Neither compared the lot accorded by station with an ideal fortune of blessed ease.  They were not temperamentally restless.  They both thought, with a practical sense that is as convenient as it is generally accepted, “somebody must do the work:  may as well be me.”  No discontent would be theirs.  And Alf was a good worker at the bench, a sober and honest man; and Emmy could make a pound go as far as any other woman in Kennington Park.  They had before them a faithful future of work in common, of ideals (workaday ideals) in common; and at this instant they were both marvellously content with the immediate outlook.  Not for them to change the order of the world.

“I feel it’s so suitable,” Emmy startlingly said, in a hushed tone, as they walked.  “Your ... you know ... ‘supposing you do’ ... me; and me ... doing the same for you.”

Alf looked solemnly round at her.  His Emmy skittish?  It was not what he had thought.  Still, it diverted him; and he ambled in pursuit.

“Yes,” he darkly said.  “What do you ‘suppose you do’ for me?”

“Why, love you,” Emmy hurried to explain, trapping herself by speed into the use of the tabooed word.  “Didn’t you know?  Though it seems funny to say it like that.  It’s so new.  I’ve never dared to ... you know ... say it.  I mean, we’re both of us quiet, and reliable ... we’re not either of us flighty, I mean.  That’s why I think we suit each other—­better than if we’d been different.  Not like we are.”

“I’m sure we do,” Alf said.

“Not like some people.  You can’t help wondering to yourself however they came to get married.  They seem so unlike.  Don’t they!  It’s funny.  Ah well, love’s a wonderful thing—­as you say!” She turned archly to him, encouragingly.

“You seem happy,” remarked Alf, in a critical tone.  But he was not offended; only tingled into desire for her by the strange gleam of merriment crossing her natural seriousness, the jubilant note of happy consciousness that the evening’s lovemaking had bred.  Alf drew her more closely to his side, increasingly sure that he had done well.  She was beginning to intrigue him.  With an emotion that startled himself as much as it delighted Emmy, he said thickly in her ear, “D’you love me ... like this?”