dge of herself.

Joyce eventually decided for her peace of mind, that love-making
belonged mainly to the period of Engagement, when everything was so new.
Once having attained the object of his desire--that is, the possession
of a wife--her lover would settle down to normal life, and no longer
regard her eyelashes with wondering admiration, or exact kisses because
her mouth was shaped like Cupid's bow. Men were so disturbing, if they
were all like Ray Meredith!--delightfully disturbing,--only they must
not know it, or peace and tranquillity would be impossible! After
marriage there would be other things to think about, such as having a
home, and, if the Lord willed it, a baby all their own, presented to
them in some extraordinary and mysterious fashion.

She had always adored babies and could rarely pass one in a perambulator
without wanting to kiss it and know all its little history. To have a
baby of her very own was a prospect so full of allurement, that she
offered no coy objections when Meredith wanted the marriage fixed at the
earliest possible date. Indeed, her calm was the despair of her girl
friends who envied her openly. Wasn't she "terribly" in love with him?
Wasn't she just "thrilled to death" with excitement at the prospect of
having a husband and going all the way out to India?

Joyce did not believe there was such a thing as being "terribly in
love," which was a phrase invented by cheap novelists, whose literature
she had never been allowed to read. She admitted she was growing very
fond of her Mr. Meredith, and preferred him to any other man. Not that
her experience of men was great--nevertheless, he was a "perfect dear."

Her sister Kitty of the schoolroom, a young woman of rather decided
opinions, reproached her severely for lack of enthusiasm over her very
presentable lover. In her eyes, Ray Meredith was the ideal of a Cinema
hero, with his clean-shaven, ascetic face, his muscular build, and
adorable smile. "You should be flattered, my dear, that he condescended
to choose you out of the millions of girls in the world," she remarked
sagely. "You may be pretty, but hosts of girls are that. One has to be
clever, and ... are _you_?... Why, you spelt vaccination with one 'c,'
and vicinity with two only yesterday, and but for me, reading over your
shoulder, you would have been disgraced for ever. I am not sure that he
would not have broken it off! Then you know nothing whatever of
politics--or football.