ng, too," she added seriously, "because the real bug-a-boo of
marriage is boredom, you know."

"But how can two people bore each other when they are in love?" demanded
Laura, almost indignant.

The possibility appeared to her at the moment as little short of
ridiculous, yet she knew, in her heart of hearts, that she faced, not
without approaching dread, the thought of those two months in Europe;
and she admitted now for the first time that beyond the absorption of
their love, she and Kemper had hardly an interest which they shared.
Even the eyes with which they looked on Europe would be divided by the
space of that whole inner world which stretched between them. Yet
because of the supremacy of this one sentiment she had striven to crush
out her brain in order that she might have the larger heart with which
to nourish the emotion which held them together. In the pauses of this
sentiment she realised that their thoughts sprang as far asunder as the
poles, and as she looked from Gerty to the wedding presents scattered in
satin boxes on chairs and tables, the fact that the step she took was
irrevocable, that in three days she would be Kemper's wife, that there
was no possible escape from it now, produced a sudden sickening terror
in her heart. Then with a desperate clutch at her old fatalistic
comfort, she told herself that it would all come right if she were only
patient--that with her marriage everything would be settled and become
entirely simple.

Gerty was unpacking a case from a silversmith's when Kemper came in; and
he gave a low whistle of dismay as he glanced about the room strewn with
boxes.

"By Jove, I believe they think we're going to set up a business!" he
exclaimed.

"Oh, you can't imagine how all this comes in for entertaining," replied
Gerty, shaking out her skirt as she rose from her knees.

Laura's eyes were on Kemper's face, and she saw that it wore a look of
annoyance beneath the conventional smile with which he responded to
Gerty's words. Something had evidently happened to displease him, and
she waited a little anxiously half hoping for, half dreading her
friend's departure.

"I trust you'll go through the ceremony more gracefully than Perry did,"
Gerty was saying with a teasing merriment, while she broke a white
rosebud from the vase of flowers and fastened it in his coat. "I declare
he quite spoiled the whole effect, he looked so frightened. I never
realised how little sense of humour Perry