Married Life | Page 5

Marie's head between his hands, and kissed her eyes and mouth. "That's for good night," he whispered; "Rokeby and I are going home. You are the sweetest thing, and I shall dream of you all night. Promise to dream of me."
"It's a certainty."
"It is?" said the young man rapturously. "I am simply too happy, then."
"Let's go and look at the flat to-morrow."
"Have tea with me in town, darling, and I'll take you."
Mrs. Amber and Rokeby came out into the hall. Rokeby wore a very patient air, and Marie's mother beamed with that soft and sorrowful pleasure which women have for such circumstances.
"Now say good night," said she softly, "say good night. Good-bye, Mr. Rokeby, and we shall see you again a week to-day?"
"A week to-day."
The two men went out and down the stairs into the street. Rokeby had his air of good-humoured and invincible patience and Osborn dreamed.
"I'll see you right home," said Rokeby.
"And you'll come in, and have a drink."
"Thanks. Perhaps I will. Haven't you got a trousseau to show me?"
"Get out, you fool!"
"What do chaps feel like, I wonder," said Rokeby, "when the day of judgment is so near?"
"I shan't tell you, you damned scoffer!"
"Well, well," said Rokeby, "I've seen lots of nice fellows go under this same way. It always makes me very sorry. I do all I can in the way of preventive measures, but it's never any good, and there's no cure. Ab-so-lutely none. There's no real luck in the business, either, as far as I've seen, though of course some are luckier than others."
"Did you mention luck?" Osborn exclaimed, from his dream. "Don't you think I'm lucky? I say, Desmond, old thing, don't you think I'm one of the most astonishingly lucky fellows on God's earth?"
"You ought to know."
"Oh, come off that silly pedestal of pretence. Cynicism's rotten. Marriage is the only life."
"'Never for me!'" Rokeby quoted Julia.
"Awful girl!" said Osborn, referring to her briefly. "'Orrid female. What?"
"Very handsome," said Rokeby.
"Handsome! I've never seen it. She's not to be compared to Marie, anyway. You haven't answered my question. Don't you think I'm lucky?"
"Yes, you are," replied Rokeby sincerely, turning to look at him, "for any man to be as happy as you seem to be even for five minutes is a great big slice of luck to be remembered."
"Marie's a wonderful girl. She can do absolutely anything, I believe. It seems incredible that a girl with hands like hers can cook and sew, but she can. Isn't it a wonder?"
"It sounds ripping."
They walked on in silence, Osborn back up in his clouds. At last he awaked to say:
"Well, here we are. You'll come in?"
"Shall I?"
"Do. I shan't have so many more evenings of--"
"Freedom--"
"--Of loneliness, confound you! Come in!"
Rokeby followed him into his rooms, on the second floor. A good fire was burning, but they were just bachelor rooms full of hired--and cheap--furniture. As Osborn cast off his overcoat and took Rokeby's, he glanced around expressively.
"You should see the flat. You will see it soon. All Marie's arrangement, and absolutely charming."
"Thanks awfully. I'll be your first caller."
"Well, don't forget it. What'll you have?"
"Whiskey, please."
"So'll I."
Osborn gave Desmond one of the two armchairs by the fire, and took the other himself. Another silence fell, during which Rokeby saw Osborn smiling secretly and involuntarily to himself as he had seen other men smile. The man was uplifted; his mind soared in heaven, while his body dwelt in a hired plush chair in the sitting-room of furnished lodgings. Rokeby took his drink, contented not to interrupt; he watched Osborn, and saw the light play over his face, and the thoughts full of beauty come and go. At length, following the direction of some thought, again it was Osborn who broke the mutual quiet, exclaiming:
"I've never shown you her latest portrait!"
"Let's look. I'd love to."
The lover rose, opened the drawer of a writing-table, and took out a photograph, a very modern affair, of most artistic mounting. He handed it jealously to Desmond and was silent while the other man looked. The girl's face, wondrously young and untroubled, frail, angelic, rose from a slender neck and shoulders swathed in a light gauze cloud. Her gay eyes gazed straight out. Rokeby looked longer than he knew, very thoughtfully, and Osborn put his hand upon the portrait, pulled it away as jealously as he had given it, and said:
"They've almost done her justice for once."
"Top-hole, old man," Rokeby replied sympathetically.

CHAPTER II
IRREVOCABLE
When Osborn dressed for his wedding he felt in what he called first-class form. He thought great things of life; life had been amazingly decent to him throughout. It had never struck him any untoward blow. The death of his parents had been sadness, certainly, but it was a natural calamity, the kind every sane man expected sooner or later and braced