“It’s because of that----” She knitted her brows, puzzling how she could break the news to him most gently. In the back of her mind she smiled to remember how much this consideration would have meant to some of her lovers. “It’s because you’re not so very old yet, that I think we ought to wait a year.” “A year!” He sat up and stared. “But a year’s a whole twelve months!” She patted his hand. “You wouldn’t like to have people laugh at me, would you? A year would give you time to grow up. And besides, before I marry, there are so many things to be done. I haven’t told you, but I’m going to America almost directly--going to sing there. Five pounds is a terrific lot of money in England, but in America it would soon get spent. Even though you were my husband, you wouldn’t be able to come. You’d have to stay here alone in our new house, and that wouldn’t be very jolly.” He saw his dream crumbling and tried to be a man; but his lip trembled. “I don’t think---- Perhaps you never meant your promise.” The trap-door in the roof opened. The hoarse voice of the cabby intruded. “’Ere we are. Piccadilly Circus.” Vashti felt for her purse in her muff. It wasn’t there. She thought for a minute, then gave the man an address and told him to drive on. “But I did mean my promise,” she assured Teddy. “Why, a year’s not long. Cheer up. Think of all the fun we’ll have writing letters. Harriet can’t have told you properly about marriage. One has to be very careful. One has to get a house and buy things for it. There are heaps of things to be bought when one gets married.” “And wouldn’t five pounds be enough?” She shook her head sorrowfully. “Not quite enough. But don’t let’s think about it. This is our day, Teddy, and we’re going to be happy. Guess where I’m taking you; it proves that I meant my promise.” When he couldn’t guess, she bent over him and whispered. He clapped his hands. “To see a house!” “To see our house,” she corrected, smiling mysteriously. “I always knew that some day I’d meet the little god Love; and so I got a house ready for him. It’s a faery house, Teddy; only you and I can see it. If you were ever to tell any one, especially Mrs. Sheerug, it would vanish.” “I’ll never, never tell. I won’t even tell Dearie. And does nobody, nobody but you and me, know about it?” She hesitated; then, “Nobody,” she answered. To have a secret with her which no one else shared, almost made up for the disappointment of not being married. Holding her hand, he watched eagerly the flying rows of houses, trying to guess which was the one. “It’s in nearly the next street, Teddy.” “This one?” “Not this one. Ours has a little white gate and a garden; it’s ever so much cosier.” They had left the traffic where the snow was churned into mud. Once more it was a world of spun glass, of whiteness and quiet, that they traversed. To Teddy it seemed that the cab was magic; it knew its way out of ugliness to the places where dreams grow up.