"
"Good heavens! Lucia! how can you be so foolish?" I exclaimed. "It's
most unwise to take all these things."
"You are not a doctor," she answered languidly.
"No; and therefore I can talk common sense," I said, flushing.
"Come, dearest, let us settle which is to be the happiest day in my
life."
"Don't fuss, Victor. I can't settle any time just now."
"But at least give me an idea!"
"I can't give you what I have not got myself."
"Do you mean you have no idea when we shall be married?"
"Yes. I have just said so."
My hand closed involuntarily on the back of the chair till the
basket-work creaked. She heard it, and felt perhaps, also, the
sudden tension in the arm beneath her head. She raised her eyes with
a gleam of the old desire in them: they were soft, and her voice was
gentle, with out any mockery in it now, as she said,--
"I am excessively sorry about it, Victor, but you may trust me. I
will give you some certain date the moment I can, when I am better.
You can't think I would voluntarily defer it, do you?"
The whole lovely, inert form heaved a little as she spoke; the
eyelids and nostrils in the up-turned face quivered, the lips
parted, and, convinced, I bent over her with a hurried, desperate
murmur.
"No! no! But, then, when? How long? Is it days, weeks, or the end of
the season?"
"Yes; I should think about the end.
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