"Darling?--oh, gee! I forgot what is due to decorum! Please, _please_ forgive me, Hélène! And kindly inform these ladies and gentlemen that you have consented to render me eternally and supremely happy; because if I tried to express to them that delirious fact I'd end by standing on my head in the grass--" "You dear!" whispered Valerie, holding tightly to Hélène's hands. "Isn't it dreadful?" murmured Hélène, turning her blue eyes on the man who never would grow old enough to grow up. "I had no such intention, I can assure you; and I don't even understand myself yet." "Don't you?" said Valerie, laughing tenderly;--"then you are like all other women. What is the use of our ever trying to understand ourselves?" Hélène laughed, too: "No use, dear. Leave it to men who say _they_ understand us. It's a mercy somebody does." "Isn't it," nodded Valerie; and they kissed each other, laughing. "My goodness, it's like the embrace of the two augurs!" said Ogilvy. "They're laughing at _us_, Kelly!--at you, and me and Harry!--and at man in general!--innocent man!--so charmingly and guilelessly symbolised by us! Stop it, Hélène! You make me shiver. You'll frighten Annan so that he'll _never_ marry if you and Valerie laugh that way at each other." "I wonder," said Hélène, quieting him with a fair hand laid lightly on his sleeve, "whether you all would remain and dine with me this evening--just as you are I mean;--and I won't dress--" "I insist _proh pudeur_," muttered Sam. "I can't countenance any such saturnalia--" "Oh, Sam, do be quiet, dear--" She caught herself up with a blush, and everybody smiled. "What do we care!" said Sam. "I'm tired of convention! If I want to call you darling in public, b'jinks! I will! Darling--darling--darling--there!--" "Sam!" "Dearest--" "_Sam!_" "Ma'am?" Hélène looked at Valerie: "There's no use," she sighed, "is there?" "No use," sighed Valerie, smiling at the man she loved. THE END End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Common Law, by Robert W. Chambers