The Breaking Point - Page 101/275

"Forsaking all others, so long as we both shall live," he said,

unsteadily.

"So long as we both shall live," she repeated.

However she had to take it off later, for Mrs. Wheeler, it developed,

had very pronounced ideas of engagement rings. They were put on the day

the notices were sent to the newspapers, and not before. So Elizabeth

wore her ring around her neck on a white ribbon, inside her camisole,

until such time as her father would consent to announce that he was

about to lose her.

Thus Elizabeth found her engagement full of unexpected turns and twists,

and nothing precisely as she had expected. But she accepted things

as they came, being of the type around which the dramas of life are

enacted, while remaining totally undramatic herself. She lived her quiet

days, worried about Jim on occasion, hemmed table napkins for her linen

chest, and slept at night with her ring on her finger and a sense of

being wrapped in protecting love that was no longer limited to the white

Wheeler house, but now extended two blocks away and around the corner to

a shabby old brick building in a more or less shabby yard.

They were very gay in the old brick house that night before the

departure, very noisy over the fish and David's broiled lamb chop. Dick

demanded a bottle of Lucy's home-made wine, and even David got a little

of it. They toasted the seashore, and the departed nurse, and David

quoted Robert Burns at some length and in a horrible Scotch accent.

Then Dick had a trick by which one read the date on one of three pennies

while he was not looking, and he could tell without failing which one

it was. It was most mysterious. And after dinner Dick took her into his

laboratory, and while she squinted one eye and looked into the finder of

his microscope he kissed the white nape of her neck.

When they left the laboratory there were patients in the waiting-room,

but he held her in his arms in the office for a moment or two, very

quietly, and because the door was thin they made a sort of game of it,

and pretended she was a patient.

"How did you sleep last night?" he said, in a highly professional and

very distinct voice. Then he kissed her.

"Very badly, doctor," she said, also very clearly, and whispered, "I lay

awake and thought about you, dear."

"I'd better give you this sleeping powder." Oh, frightfully

professional, but the powder turned out to be another kiss. It was a

wonderful game.