“Really, Mr. Moon...” said Rosamund, rather more faintly.

He kept two big blue magnetic eyes fixed on her face.  “Is my name Moon?” he asked.  “Is your name Hunt?  On my honour, they sound to me as quaint and as distant as Red Indian names.  It’s as if your name was `Swim’ and my name was `Sunrise.’  But our real names are Husband and Wife, as they were when we fell asleep.”

“It is no good,” said Rosamund, with real tears in her eyes; “one can never go back.”

“I can go where I damn please,” said Michael, “and I can carry you on my shoulder.”

“But really, Michael, really, you must stop and think!” cried the girl earnestly.  “You could carry me off my feet, I dare say, soul and body, but it may be bitter bad business for all that.  These things done in that romantic rush, like Mr. Smith’s, they—­ they do attract women, I don’t deny it.  As you say, we’re all telling the truth to-night.  They’ve attracted poor Mary, for one.  They attract me, Michael.  But the cold fact remains:  imprudent marriages do lead to long unhappiness and disappointment—­ you’ve got used to your drinks and things—­I shan’t be pretty much longer—­”

“Imprudent marriages!” roared Michael.  “And pray where in earth or heaven are there any prudent marriages?  Might as well talk about prudent suicides.  You and I have dawdled round each other long enough, and are we any safer than Smith and Mary Gray, who met last night?  You never know a husband till you marry him.  Unhappy! of course you’ll be unhappy.  Who the devil are you that you shouldn’t be unhappy, like the mother that bore you?  Disappointed! of course we’ll be disappointed.  I, for one, don’t expect till I die to be so good a man as I am at this minute—­ a tower with all the trumpets shouting.”

“You see all this,” said Rosamund, with a grand sincerity in her solid face, “and do you really want to marry me?”

“My darling, what else is there to do?” reasoned the Irishman.  “What other occupation is there for an active man on this earth, except to marry you?  What’s the alternative to marriage, barring sleep?  It’s not liberty, Rosamund.  Unless you marry God, as our nuns do in Ireland, you must marry Man—­that is Me.  The only third thing is to marry yourself—­ yourself, yourself, yourself—­the only companion that is never satisfied—­ and never satisfactory.”

“Michael,” said Miss Hunt, in a very soft voice, “if you won’t talk so much, I’ll marry you.”

“It’s no time for talking,” cried Michael Moon; “singing is the only thing.  Can’t you find that mandoline of yours, Rosamund?”

“Go and fetch it for me,” said Rosamund, with crisp and sharp authority.

The lounging Mr. Moon stood for one split second astonished; then he shot away across the lawn, as if shod with the feathered shoes out of the Greek fairy tale.  He cleared three yards and fifteen daisies at a leap, out of mere bodily levity; but when he came within a yard or two of the open parlour windows, his flying feet fell in their old manner like lead; he twisted round and came back slowly, whistling.  The events of that enchanted evening were not at an end.