But the eyes that she lifted to me this time were not merely puzzled--they were suffering. If Paul Brenswick could have seen his beloved at this moment and even so much as hoped that there was a God, he would have gone down on his knees then and there and prayed that for Love's sake the very real shock which he had just given her would end in laughter rather than tears. Yet her speech, when it came at last, was perfectly casual. "He--he wouldn't talk," she said. "Couldn't, you mean!" I contradicted her quite sharply. "Husbands can't, you know! Marriage seems to do something queer to their vocal chords." "Your husband talks," smiled the Bride very faintly. "Oh--beautifully," I admitted. "But not to me! It doesn't seem to be quite compatible with established romance somehow, this talking business, between husbands and wives." "Romance?" rallied the Bride. "Would you call Mr. Delville ex--exactly romantic!" "Oh--very!" I boasted. "But not conversationally." "But I wanted to talk," said the Bride, very slowly. "Why, of course, you did, you dear darling!" I cried out impulsively. "Most brides do! You wanted to discuss and decide in about thirty minutes every imaginable issue that is yet to develop in all the long glad years you hope to have together! The friends you are going to build. Why you haven't even glimpsed a child's picture in a magazine, this the first week of your marriage, without staying awake half the night to wonder what your children's children's names will be." "How do you know?" asked the Bride, a bit incisively. "Because once I was a Bride myself," I said. "But this Paul of yours," I insisted. "This Paul of yours, you see, hasn't finished wondering yet about just you----!" "For Heaven's sake," called my own husband through the half open doorway, "what's all this pow-wow about?" "About husbands," I answered, quite frankly. "An argument in fact as to whether taken all in all a husband is ever very specially amusing to talk to." "Amusing to talk to?" hooted my Husband. "Never! The most that any poor husband can hope for is to prove amusing to talk about!" "Who said Paul?" called that young person himself from the further shadows of the hallway. "No one has," I laughed, "for as much as two minutes." A trifle flushed from his nap, and most becomingly dishevelled as to hair, the Bridegroom stepped into the light. I heard his Bride give a little sharp catch of her breath. "I--I think I must have been asleep," said the Bridegroom. Twice the Bride swallowed very hard before she spoke. "I--I think you must have, you rascal!" she said. It was a real victory! Really my Husband and I would have been banged in the door if we hadn't jumped out as fast as we did!