She hung close upon his arm. “No, you won’t let me regret it, will you? You won’t _ever_ let me regret it?” “’Course not.” “I want to know, when you make that leap to the mountain top, that my arm will be through yours as it is now.” “It will be then. I shall want to show my treasures to the world,” he said. Her mouth broke into a smile. “Nothing else matters,” she said. II A registrar is not, as a rule, an enlivening person. He is a dealer in extremities—to him a birth or a death is merely a matter of so many words written upon a page, and a marriage is no greater affair than a union of two people brought together for the purpose of providing him with subjects for his more serious offices. The particular registrar who was responsible for making Wynne and Eve man and wife was no exception to the rule. He proved to be a man of boundless melancholy, who recited the necessary passages with a gloom of intonation better befitting a burial than a bridal. His distress was acute in that they had failed to import the required witnesses—and, indeed, at one time he seemed disposed to deny them the privileges of his powers. The apartment in which the ceremony took place smelt disagreeably from lack of ventilation, and the newly-wed pair were thankful to come into the sunshine of the street outside. So great was the oppression produced that neither one nor the other felt capable of saying a word, and it was only by a mighty effort Wynne was able to say: “We’re married.” Eve pressed his hand, and nodded. “Rather beastly, wasn’t it?” She nodded again. “Doesn’t seem very real, does it?” And she replied, “Would you kiss me just to make it seem more real?” Rather awkwardly he stooped and brushed her cheek with a kiss. “Better?” he said. “A bit.” He began to speak rather fast: “After all, what’s it matter? This is only the beginning. We’ll count today as any other day—a working day. I’m no more to you—or you to me—beyond the sharing of a single name and a single roof. We won’t spoil our future by any foretaste of its good. Do you agree?” “I agree.” “Then shake hands, partner.” “God bless you and let you win,” said Eve, as she laid her hand on his. By the doors of the British Museum they nodded a temporary farewell. He entered and made his way to the reading-room, and she walked home alone. III The moonlight streamed through the slanting window, pitching a dim ray upon Wynne as he lay asleep. It was dark in the lonely corner, on the far side of the room, where, very faintly, the outline of a slim white figure could be seen—a figure hugging her knees and resting her chin upon them. Very quiet it was—just the rise and fall of a man’s breathing and the muted, humming noises of the night. The clocks of the City coughed and jarred the hour of three.