ames. He would kiss her--she had beautiful lips to kiss! and
hold her hand--it was a soft little hand to hold, and tease her about
her shaded hair, and her sharp little nose, and her ridiculous, pointed
shoes! They would get out at the terminus, but instead of bidding each
other a polite good-bye, would drive off together in a fly, discussing
joint plans for the evening. Later on they would have dinner at a
little table in the great dining-hall of the hotel, criticising their
neighbours, and laughing at their peculiarities. In the theatre they
would whisper together, and when the curtain went up on the heels of a
critical moment, he would see the tear-drops shining once more on her
lashes.--It was a lonely business going off to a man's club, where
nobody wanted you, or cared a brass farthing whether you came or went.
Not that for a moment he wished to be married--least of all to Cornelia
Briskett. There were a dozen things about her which jarred on his
nerves, and offended his ideas of good taste. He objected to her
accent, her unconventional expressions, her little tricks of manner;
while on almost every subject her point of view appeared to be
diametrically opposed to his own. In her company he would be often
jarred, annoyed, and discomfited, but of a certainty he would never be
bored! Rapidly reviewing his life for the last few years, it appeared
to Guest that he had existed in a chronic state of boredom. If "we were
a honeymoon couple," that dreariness at least would come to an end!

He looked at Cornelia's ungloved left hand resting upon the dark
cushions--she wore a ring, a wide, flat band of gold, with one fine
diamond standing far out, in a claw setting. American ladies affect
solitaire rings, as tokens of betrothal--did this mean that the
honeymooning question was already settled? If it were so, the fact
would account for the girl's absence of embarrassment in his own
company; all the same, he did not believe it, for there was in her
manner a calm, virginal composure, an absence of sentimentality, which
seemed to denote that the citadel had not yet been stormed.

Cornelia noted his gaze, without in the least guessing its meaning.

"It was the other wrist that was sprained-- The right one!" she said,
holding it up as she spoke, and carefully moving it to and fro. "It's
heaps better, thanks to you. I set Mury to rub it, according to
instructions, and--there you are! It's most as well as the other."