They had not been long away, this newly wedded couple, when they returned to the home he had prepared.  As he remarked half grimly to me, in comment on lost years, they had met so late in the nesting season that time should not be wasted.  Of that home more will be told in other pages, but it is only of the two people I am talking now.

I noted a difference in their way when I first dined with them, which I did, of course, as soon as they had returned.  I had thought them very close together before in thought and being, but I saw that there was more.  The sweet, sacred intimacy which marriage afforded had given the greater fullness to what had seemed to me already perfect.  But I was one with much to learn of many things.  And yet these two were to come closer still—­closer through a better mutual understanding and new mutual hopes.  It was long afterward when I understood.

It was after dinner one day, and in the sitting-room, which was a library as well.  They were going out that evening, but it was early still, and he was leaning back in a big chair smoking the post-prandial cigar, and she coiled upon a lower seat very near him, so near that he could put his hand upon her head, and they were talking lightly of many things.  She looked up more earnestly at last.

“Will you ever tire of it, Grant?”

He laughed happily.

“Tire of what, Brownie?”

“Of this, of me, and of it all; will you never weary of the quietness of it and want some change?  You must care very much, indeed, if you will not.”

He spoke slowly.

“It seems to me that though we were to live each a thousand years, I would never tire of this as it is.  But, of course, it will not be just this way.  We could not keep it so if we would, and would not if we could.”

“Why should it change?”

He drew her close to him and placed his hand upon her face and kissed her on the forehead.

“I shall be more in the fray again.  I must be.  You would not have your husband a sluggard among men, and that will sometimes take me from you, though never for long, because I’m afraid I shall be selfish and have you with me when there are long journeys.  And it will change, too, you know—­because you see, dear, there may be the—­the others.  You hope so, with me, do you not?”

Her face remained hidden for a little time.  When she raised it, there was a blush upon her cheeks, but her eyes had not the glance he had anticipated.

“No!” she said.

He did not reply, because he could not comprehend.  He looked at her, astonished, and she broke forth recklessly: 

“I love you so, Grant!  I love you so!  I want you, just you, and no one else.  Are we not happy as we are?  Are you not satisfied with me, just me?  You are like all men!  You are selfish!  You—­oh, love!  You love me so—­I know that—­but you think of me—­it seems so, anyhow—­as but part of a scheme of life, of the life which will make you happy.  My love, my husband! why need it be that way?  Why am I not enough?  Why may we not be one, just one, and be that way?  I want nothing more.  Why should you?  Are we not all our own world?  I will be everything to you.  Oh, Grant!” And she ceased, sobbingly.