“Well, what’s on your conscience?” He smiled down at me roguishly.  “You look as if you were going to confess to a murder at least.”

“Not that bad,” I smiled faintly.  “But oh, Dicky, if I promise to try not to say anything irritating today, will you promise not to, either?”

“Sure as you’re born,” Dicky returned cheerfully.  “Don’t want to spoil the day, eh?”

“It’s such a heavenly day,” I sighed.  “I feel as if I couldn’t stand it to have anything mar it.”

As we sat in the train that bore us to Marvin Dicky outlined some of his plans for the summer.

“There are two or three of the fellows who come down here summers who I know will be glad to go Dutch on a motor boat,” he said.  “We can take the bulliest trips, way out to deserted sand islands, where the surf is the best ever.  We’ll take along a tent and spend the night there sometime, or we can stretch out in the boat.  Then we must see if we can get hold of some horses.  Do you ride?  Think of it!  We’ve been married months, and I don’t know yet whether you ride or not!”

“No, I don’t ride, but oh, how I’ve always wanted to!” I returned with enthusiasm.  Then, with a sudden qualm, “But all that will be terribly expensive, won’t it?”

“Not so awful,” Dicky said, smiling down at me.  “But even if it is, I guess we can stand it.  I’ve had some cracking good orders lately.  We’ll have one whale of a summer.”

My heart beat high with happiness.  Surely, with all these plans for me, my husband’s thoughts could not be much occupied with his beautiful model.  As he lifted me down to the station platform at Marvin I looked with friendliness at the dingy, battered old railroad station which I remembered, at the defiant sign near it which trumpeted in large type, “Don’t judge the town by the station,” and the winding main street of the village, which, when I had visited Marvin before, Dicky had wished to show me.

Upon that other visit our first sight of Grace Draper and Dicky’s interest in her had spoiled the trip for me.  I had insisted upon going back without seeing some of the things Dicky had planned to show me, and I had disliked the thought of the town ever since.  But with Dicky’s loving plans for my happiness dazzling me, I felt a touch of the glamour with which he invested the place in my eyes.  I caught at his hand in an unwonted burst of tenderness.

“Let’s walk down that old winding street which you told me about last winter,” I said.  “I’ve wanted to see it ever since you spoke about it.”

“We’ll probably motor down it instead,” he grinned.  “There’s a real estate office just opposite here, and I see the agent’s flivver in front of the door, where he stands just inside his office.  The spider and the fly, eh, Madge?  Well, Mr. Spider, here are two dear little flies for you!”

“Oh, Dicky!” I dragged at his arm in protest.  “Don’t spoil our first view of that street by whirling through it in a car.  Let’s saunter down it first and then come back to the real estate man.”