“Oh, yes, you are.  Half of your life has gone; you have settled down into the cares and duties of married life, none of which had been so much as thought of when I took you.”

“Not thought of!  They have been on my mind ever since that night at Mrs. Armitage’s.”

“Only in a romantic and therefore untrue sort of manner.  Since that time you have always thought of me with a white choker and dress-boots.”

“Don’t flatter yourself; I never looked at your boots.”

“You knew that they were the boots and the clothes of a man making love, didn’t you?  I don’t care personally very much about my own boots:  I never shall care about another pair; but I should care about them—­any thing that might give me the slightest assistance.”

“Nothing was wanted; it had all been done, Harry.”

“My pet!  But still a pair of high-lows heavy with nails would not have been efficacious then.  I should think I love him, you might have said to yourself, but he is such an awkward fellow.”

“It had gone much beyond that at Mrs. Armitage’s.”

“But now you have to take my high-lows as part of your duty.”

“And you?”

“When a man loves a woman he falls in love with everything belonging to her.  You don’t wear high-lows.  Everything you possess as specially your own has to administer to my sense of love and beauty.”

“I wish—­I wish it might be so.”

“There is no danger about that at all.  But I have to come before you on an occasion such as this as a kind of navvy,—­and you must accept me.”  She glanced around furtively to see whether their guide was looking, but the guide had gone back out of sight.  For, sitting on her pony, she had her arm around his neck and kissed him.  “And then there is ever so much more,” he continued.  “I don’t think I snore?”

“Indeed, no!  There isn’t a sound comes from you.  I sometimes look to see if I think you are alive.”

“But if I do, you’ll have to put up with it.  That would be one of your duties as a wife.  You never could have thought of that when I had those dress-boots on.”

“Of course I didn’t.  How can you talk such rubbish?”

“I don’t know whether it is rubbish.  Those are the kind of things that must fall upon a woman so heavily.  Suppose I were to beat you?”

“Beat me!”

“Yes;—­hit you over the head with this stick!”

“I am sure you would not do that.”

“So am I. But suppose I were to?  Your mother must be told of my leaving that poor man bloody and speechless.  What if I were to carry out my usual habits as then shown?  Take care, my darling, or that brute’ll throw you!” This he said as the pony stumbled over a stone.

“Almost as unlikely as you are.  One has to risk dangers in the world, but one makes the risk as little as possible.  I know they won’t give me a pony that will tumble down; and I know that I’ve told you to look to see that they don’t.  You chose the pony, but I had to choose you.  I don’t know very much about ponies, but I do know something about a lover, and I know that I have got one that will suit me.”