I thought not, but I only said, "Well, we've got until next winter,--if
we can beat him here."
Ed insisted that I must stay on and help him at the delicate task of
reversing the current of Fredonia sentiment. My share of the work was
important enough, but, as it was confined entirely to making
suggestions, it took little of my time. I had no leisure, however, for
there was Carlotta to look after.
* * * * *
When it was all over and she had told Ed and he had shaken hands with
her and had kissed me and had otherwise shown the chaotic condition of
his mind, and she and I were alone again, she said, "How did it happen?
I don't remember that you really proposed to me. Yet we certainly are
engaged."
"We certainly are," said I, "and that's the essential point, isn't it?"
"Yes," she admitted, "but,--" and she looked mystified.
"We drifted," I suggested.
She glanced at me with a smile that was an enigma. "Yes--we just
drifted. Why do you look at me so queerly?"
"I was just going to ask you that same question," said I by way of
evasion.
Then we both fell to thinking, and after a long time she roused herself
to say, "But we shall be very happy. I am so fond of you. And you are
going to be a great man and you do so look it, even if you aren't tall
and fair, as I always thought the man I married would be. Don't look at
me like that. Your eyes are strange enough when you are smiling; but
when you--I often wonder what you're so sad about."
"Have you ever seen a grown person's face that wasn't sad in repose?" I
asked, eager to shift from the particular to the general.
"A few idiots or near idiots," she replied with a laugh. Thereafter we
talked of the future and let the past sleep in its uncovered coffin.
V