nts were faintly
tremulous.

She professed to be vastly interested and amused by the room and its
furniture and her position, and he was delighted by her delight. She
was particularly entertained by the chest of drawers in the living
room, and by Lewisham's witticisms at the toilet tidies and the
oleographs.

And after the chops and the most of the tinned salmon and the very new
loaf were gone they fell to with fine effect upon a tapioca
pudding. Their talk was fragmentary. "Did you hear her call me
_Madame? Madame_--so!" "And presently I must go out and do some
shopping. There are all the things for Sunday and Monday morning to
get. I must make a list. It will never do to let her know how little I
know about things.... I wish I knew more."

At the time Lewisham regarded her confession of domestic ignorance as
a fine basis for facetiousness. He developed a fresh line of thought,
and condoled with her on the inglorious circumstances of their
wedding. "No bridesmaids," he said; "no little children scattering
flowers, no carriages, no policemen to guard the wedding presents,
nothing proper--nothing right. Not even a white favour. Only you and
I."

"Only you and I. _Oh_!"

"This is nonsense," said Lewisham, after an interval.

"And think what we lose in the way of speeches," he resumed. "Cannot
you imagine the best man rising:--'Ladies and gentlemen--the health of
the bride.' That is what the best man has to do, isn't it?"

By way of answer she extended her hand.

"And do you know," he said, after that had received due recognition,
"we have never been introduced!"

"Neither have we!" said Ethel. "Neither have we! We have never been
introduced!"

For some inscrutable reason it delighted them both enormously to think
that they had never been introduced....

In the later afternoon Lewisham, having unpacked his books to a
certain extent, and so forth, was visible to all men, visibly in the
highest spirits, carrying home Ethel's shopping. There were parcels
and cones in blue and parcels in rough grey paper and a bag of
confectionery, and out of one of the side pockets of that East-end
overcoat the tail of a haddock protruded from its paper. Under such
magnificent sanctions and amid such ignoble circumstances did this
honeymoon begin.

On Sunday evening they went for a long rambling walk through the quiet
streets, coming out at last into Hyde Park. The early spring night was
mild and clear and the kindly moonlig