Dick had glimpses of insight. “I wonder if you are really very innocent or very wise,” he said laughingly to her. “Sometimes I guess one and sometimes the other. You avoid disagreeable things so--so exquisitely. Most women are so controversial nowadays.” “I’ve nothing to be controversial about. Besides I don’t like controversies.” “Wonderful woman!” admired Dick. He enjoyed making Cecily presents, took delight in the almost childish pleasure she showed over his thoughtfulness and over new possessions. And he liked to see people admire her, as people invariably did. They had planned on a month of vacation and then were to join Cecily’s mother and stepfather in New York for a few days before going home. Cecily’s mother awaited that meeting with some anxiety. In the days before the wedding she had kept close to Cecily, a little shyly, as if she wished to compress into those days a closer companionship than they had ever had before. But it was too late, perhaps, to create a feeling that grows naturally with years. They admired each other immensely, but they were not intimate. Mrs. Warner’s manner, with its unaccustomed trace of nervousness as she stood with her husband before the gates of the train yards, was not reflected in him. He was the first to catch a glimpse of Dick and Cecily and chuckled. “There they are”--he waved boisterously--“and they don’t see us; they aren’t even looking at us. Like to know what we came for to break in on that--if we could break in!” They came along the platform, absorbed in something they were discussing, and with one glance at Cecily Mrs. Warner’s face lost its anxiety. Cecily walked regardless of the world. Dick must have been very good to her and very gentle to make her look like that. Then the young people saw the elder ones and hurried to them. There was something fairly humorous in Cecily’s new sophistication. She felt much older, much more learned, thoroughly admitted to the class of married women. Even her mother smiled. And her stepfather teased her. “She swaggers when she gives her name,” she said. “Did you hear her tell the clerk that the order was for Mrs. Richard Harrison? He grew pale at the august name. You mustn’t be such a snob, Cecily. Almost anybody can get married.” “Not to Dick,” said Cecely, unperturbed. “No--not without some penalty as things stand now,” admitted Mr. Warner. Such swaggers--Dick sported his complacencies too--amused the Warners and delighted them. Dick had a proprietary way of deciding when Cecily was tired and the note in his voice as he said “my wife” reflected the superiority of Cecily’s “Mrs. Harrison.” The older people showed their pleasure in all this by spending a great deal of money and being willing to postpone their Atlantic City trip still further. But Cecily demurred. She wanted to get back to Carrington now to take the final step that might prove to be the happiest--to begin her home.