David inquired with great anxiety whether something had not been said to vex her.

“Not in the least,” replied Lucy, calmly.  “Little things and little people can no longer vex me.  I have great duties to think of and a great heart to share them with me.  Let us walk toward Harrowden; we may perhaps meet a friend.”

Sure enough, just on this side Harrowden they met the covered cart, and Eve in it, radiant with unexpected delight.  The engaged ones—­for such they had become in those two miles—­mounted the cart, and the two men sat in front, and Eve and Lucy intertwined at the back, and opened their hearts to each other.

Eve.  And you have taken the paper off again?

Lucy.  What paper?  It was no longer applicable.

CHAPTER XXX.

I HAVE already noticed that Lucy, after capitulation, laid down her arms gracefully and sensibly.  When she was asked to name a very early day for the wedding, she opposed no childish delay to David’s happiness, for the Rajah was to sail in six weeks and separate them.  So the license was got, and the wedding-day came; and all Lucy’s previous study of the contract did not prevent her from being deeply affected by the solemn words that joined her to David in holy matrimony.

She bore up, though, stoutly; for her sense of propriety and courtesy forbade her to cloud a festivity.  But, when the post-chaise came to convey bride and bridegroom on their little tour, and she had to leave Mrs. Wilson and Eve for a whole week, the tears would not be denied; and, to show how perilous a road matrimony is, these two risked a misunderstanding on their wedding-day, thus:  Lucy, all alone in the post-chaise with David, dissolved—­a perfect Niobe—­gushing at short intervals.  Sometimes a faint explanation gurgled out with the tears:  “Poor Eve! her dear little face was working so not to cry.  Oh! oh!  I should not have minded so much if she had cried right out.”  Then, again, it was “Poor Mrs. Wilson!  I was only a week with her, for all her love.  I have made a c—­at’s p—­paw of her—­oh!”

Then, again, “Uncle Bazalgette has never noticed us; he thinks me a h—­h—­ypocrite.”  But quite as often they flowed without any accompanying reason.

Now if David had been a poetaster, he would have said:  “Why these tears? she has got me.  Am I not more than an equivalent to these puny considerations?” and all this salt water would have burned into his vanity like liquid caustic.  If he had been a poet, he would have said:  “Alas!  I make her unhappy whom I hoped to make happy”; and with this he would have been sad, and so prolonged her sadness, and perhaps ended by sulking.  But David had two good things—­a kind heart and a skin not too thin:  and such are the men that make women happy, in spite of their weak nerves and craven spirits.

He gave her time; soothed her kindly; but did not check her weakness dead short.