was required, in the State where she resided. There was no defense.
Grant Harlson became free, and Jean Cornish, since his freedom came in
this way, promised, at last, to become his wife.

CHAPTER XX.

TWO FOOLS.

They loved. They were to marry, but there were the conventionalities
to be observed, and they could not be wed at once. That was understood
by Grant Harlson, though he chafed at it a little.

There were certain months to be passed before the two would be as one
completely, and those months were very sweet months to the twain. They
were much together, this man and woman who were plighted to each other,
for why should they not be, since they were to become man and wife, and
since neither was so happy under other circumstances? They were not
what a profound, unsentimental person would consider models of
common-sense, but they were not depending upon the opinions of
profound, unsentimental persons for anything in particular; so this did
not affect them.

They exhibited no great interest in society, though each commanded a
place there, but they would go to church or theater together, and they
were much addicted to luncheons. She would come down town at noon to
meet him, and then--what banquets! Sometimes they would visit the
restaurants where there were fine things, and he would seek to make of
her a gourmet. He taught her the beauties of the bobolink in his later
attractive form, the form he assumes when, after having been
transformed into a reed bird, he comes back on ice to the region where,
in the midsummer, he disported himself, and stirs the heart of the good
liver, as in June he did the heart of the poet. He taught her the
difference between Roquefort cheese, that green garden of toothsome
fungi, that crumbly, piquant apotheosis of the best that comes from
curd, and all other cheeses, and taught, too, the virtues of each in
its own way. She learned the adjuncts of black coffee and hard
crackers. She even learned to criticise a claret, and once, with
Harlson, she tested a _pousse cafe_, but only once. He didn't approve
of it, he said, for ladies. And, besides, a _pousse cafe_ was not of
merit in itself. It was but a thing spectacular.

And in the matter of made dishes from the man about town she acquired
much wisdom.

The man in his great happiness was buoyant and fantastic, and well it
was that the woman, too, possessed the sense of humor which makes the
world worth occupancy,