They were back home now.
"Why, Mary has intuitions," laughed Ernestine, when she saw that a fire had been lighted in the library, and was in just the proper state for seeing pictures. "A girl who knew we would want a fire has either been in love or ought to be. At any rate, she knows we are."
"This is the kind of a night when a fire serves artistic purposes only. You don't need it, so you have to enjoy it all the more."
"Still, these spring evenings are damp," she insisted, defending the fire. "It doesn't feel at all uncomfortable."
"And looks immense," he added, turning down the gas and pulling up a seat just right for sitting before the fire.
She leaned over, holding her hand so close to the flame that he wondered at first what she was doing.
"See!" she cried, "see my ruby in the firelight, Karl! It's just a piece of it right up here on my hand!"
"And I suppose,"--seeming to be injured--"that during the remainder of my life, I may play second fiddle to that ring. Oh, Ernestine--you're a woman! I was mortified to death at the theatre. You didn't look at the play at all. You just sat and looked down at that ring. Oh, I saw through that thing of not being able to fasten your glove!"
She was twisting her hand about to show off the stone--any woman of any land who has ever owned a ring knows just how to do it.
"See, dear!" she laughed exultantly, "it
is fire! You can see things in it just as you can in the coals."
But he was not looking at the ring. There were things to be seen in her face and he was looking at them. He loved this child in her. Was it in all women when they love, he wondered, as many other men have wondered of other women, or was it just Ernestine?
"It was a dreadful thing for you to get it," she scolded,--these affectionate scoldings were a great joy to him. "It's a ridiculous thing for a poor college professor--that's you--to buy a ruby ring. Why, rubies exist just to show millionaires how rich they are! And it's a scandalous thing for a poor man's wife--that's I--to be wearing a real ruby!" Then her other hand went over the ring, and clasping both to her breast she laughed gleefully: "But it's mine! They'll not get it now!"
"Who wants it, foolish child?" he asked, pressing her head to his shoulder and holding the ring hand in his.
She moved a little nearer to him.
"See some pictures for me in the fire," she commanded. "See something nice."
"I see a beautiful lady wearing a beautiful ring. See?--right under that top piece of coal. The ring is growing larger and larger and larger. Now it is so large you can't see the lady at all, just nothing but the ring."
She laughed. "Now see one that isn't silly. See a beautiful one."
"Liebchen, I see two people who are growing old. See?--right down here. One of them must be sixty now, and one about seventy, but they're smiling just as they did when they were young. And they're whispering that they love each other a great deal better now than they did in those days of long ago; that it has grown and grown until it is a bigger thing than the love of youth ever dreamed of."
"That
is nice," she murmured happily. "That would be a nice picture to paint." They were silent for a time, perhaps both seeing pictures of their own. "It's growing late," said Ernestine, a little drowsily, "but then, I'll never have this birthday again."
"And it was happy?" he asked tenderly. "Just as happy as you wanted it to be?"
"So happy that I hate to see it go. It was--just right."
"Weren't any of the others happy, dear?"--he was stroking her hair, thinking that it too had caught little touches of the fire-light.
"None of the others were perfect. Of course, last year was our first one together, and"--a shudder ran through her.
"I know, dear," he hastened; "I know that wasn't a perfect day."
"Before that," she went on, after a minute of looking a long way into the fire, "something always happened. My birthday seemed ill-fated. That was why I wanted a happy one so much--to make up for all the others. This day began right by the work going so splendidly. Is there anything much more satisfying than the feeling which comes at the close of a good day's work? It puts you on such good terms with yourself, convinces you that you have a perfect right to be alive. Then this afternoon I read some things which I had read long ago and didn't understand then as I do now. You see, there was a great deal I didn't know before I loved you, Karl; and books are just human enough to want to be met half way."
"Like men," he commented, meeting her then a trifle more than half way.
"Yes, they have to be petted and fussed over, just like men. Now, Karl, are you listening or are you not?"
He assured her that he was listening.
"Then, this afternoon, Georgia came out and we went for a row on the lagoon in Jackson Park. Did you happen to look out and see how beautiful it was this afternoon, Karl? I wish you would do that once in a while. Germs and cells and things aren't so very aesthetic, you know, and I don't like to have you miss things. I was thinking about you as we passed the university. It seemed such a big, wonderful place, and I love to think of what it is your work really means. I
am so proud of you, Karl!"
"And was it nice down there?" he asked, just to bring her back to her story of the day.
"So beautiful! You and I must go often now that the spring evenings have come. There is one place where you come out from a bridge, and can see the German building, left from the World's Fair, across a great sweep of lights and shadows. People who want to go to Europe and can't, should go down there and look at that. It's so old-worldish.
"Then Georgia and I had a fine talk,"--after another warm, happy silence. "Georgia never was so nice. She was telling me all about a man. I shouldn't wonder; but I mustn't tell even you--not yet. Then I came home and here were the beautiful flowers from Dr. Parkman. Karl--you
did tell him! Honest now--you did--and it was awful. Why didn't you put it in the university paper so that all the students could send me things? That nice boy, Harry Wyman, wrote a poem about me--'To the Lovely Lady'--now you needn't laugh! And oh, I don't know, but it all seemed so beautiful and right when I came home this afternoon. I love our house more and more. I love those funny knobs on the doors, and this library seems just
us! I was so happy I couldn't keep from singing, and you know I can't sing at all. Then
you came home! You had the box out in your hand--I saw it clear across the street. You were smiling just like a boy. I shall never forget how you looked as you gave me the ring. I think, after all, that look was my
real birthday gift.--Now, Karl, don't you
know you shouldn't have bought such a ring? But, oh!--I,
am so happy, sweetheart."
He kissed her. His heart was very full. There was nothing he could say, so he kissed her again and laid his cheek upon her hair.
He knew she was growing sleepy. Sleep was coming to her as it does to the child who has had its long, happy day. But like the child, she would not give up until the last. It was true, he was sure, that she was loath to let the day go.
"The play to-night was very nice," she said, rousing a little, "but so short-sighted."
"Short-sighted, liebchen? How?"
"So many things in literature stop short when the people are married. I think that's such an immature point of view--just as if that were the end of the story. And when they write stories about married people they usually have them terribly unhappy about having to live together, and wishing they could live with some one else. It seems to me they leave out the best part."
"The best part, I suppose, meaning us?"
"Yes!"
"But, dear, if you and I were written up, just as we are, we'd be called two idiots."
"Would we?"--her head was caressing his coat.
"Have you ever thought how a stenographic or phonographic report of some of our conversations would sound?"
"Beautiful," she murmured.
"Crazy!" he insisted.
"Perhaps the world didn't mean people to be so happy as we are,"--her words stumbled drowsily.
"The world isn't as good to many people as it is to us. Oh, sweetheart--why,"--he held her closely but very tenderly, for he knew she was going to sleep--"why are we so happy?"
"Because I'm the--lovely--lady,"--it came from just outside the land of dreams.
It was sweet to have her go to sleep in his arms like this. He trembled with the joy of holding her, looking at her face with eyes of tenderest love, rejoicing in her, worshipping her. He went over the things she had said, his whole being mellowed, divinely exultant, at thought of her going to sleep just because she was tired from her day of happiness. Long ago his mother had taught him to pray, and he prayed now that he might keep her always as she was to-day, that he might guard her ever as she had that sense now of being guarded, that her only weariness might come as this had come, because she was so happy. How beautiful she was as she slept! The Lovely Lady--that boy had said it right, after all. And she was his!--his treasure--his joy--his sweetest thing in life! He had heard a discussion over at the university a few days before about the equality of man and woman. How foolish that seemed in this divine moment! God in His great far-sightedness had given to the world a masculine and a feminine soul. How insane to talk of their being alike, when the highest happiness in life came through their being so entirely different! And she was his! Other men could send her flowers--write poems about her loveliness--but she was his, all his. His to love and cherish and protect--to work for--live for!
He kissed her, and her eyes opened. "Poor little girl's so tired; but she'll have to wake up enough to go to bed."
She smiled, murmured something that sounded like "Happy day," and went to sleep again.
The fire had died low. He sat there a minute longer dreaming before it, thanking God for a home, for work and love and happiness. Then he picked Ernestine up in his arms as one would pick up the little child too tired to walk to bed. "Oh, liebchen," he breathed in tender passion, as she nestled close to him,--"ich liebe dich!"