“And I was so took--taken by surprise it never dawned on me till this minute. Now what do you know about that?” “We shall have to be very quiet. I cannot get my degree until a year from June--a year and seven months from now. I shall study day and night, and work in the mines during the winter and summer vacations. I cannot take you anywhere.” “Lord knows it can’t be worse’n this. I’ll have my friends to talk to and there’s always the movin’ picture shows. Lord, how I’d like to see one.” “Well, you shall,” he said kindly. “I wrote to Mark some time ago and asked him to give the tenant of the cottage notice. As this is the third of the month it must be empty and ready for us.” “My goodness gracious!” cried his wife with pardonable irritation, “but you are a grand one for handin’ out surprises! Most husbands tell their wives things as they go along, but you ruminate like a cow and hand over the cud when you’re good and ready. I’m sick of bein’ treated as if I was a child.” “Please don’t look at it in that way. What is the use of talking about things until one is quite sure they can be accomplished?” “That’s half the fun of bein’ married,” said Ida with one of her flashes of intuition. “Is it?” Gregory turned this over in his mind, then, out of his own experience, rejected it as a truism. He could not think of any subject he would care to discuss with his wife; or any other woman. But he kissed her with an unusual sense of compunction. “Perhaps I liked the idea of surprising you,” he said untruthfully. “You will be glad to live in Butte once more?” “You may bet your bottom dollar on that. When do we go?” “Tomorrow.” “_Lands_ sakes! Well, I’m dumb. And breakfast has to be got if I _have_ had a bomb exploded under me. That Chink was doin’ fine when I left, but the Lord knows----” She walked toward the rear of the house, temper in the swing of her hips, her head tossed high. Although rejoicing at the prospect of living in town, she was both angry and vaguely alarmed, as she so often had been before, at the unimaginable reserves, the unsuspected mental activities, and the sudden strikings of this life-partner who should have done his thinking out loud. “Lord knows,” thought Mrs. Compton, as she approached her kitchen, with secret intent to relieve her feelings by “lambasting” the Mongolian and leaving Oakley to shift for himself, “it’s like livin’ with that there Sphinx. I don’t s’pose I’ll ever get used to him, and maybe the time’ll come when I won’t want to.” III