Page:Dale - A Marriage Below Zero.djvu/123

Rh "Madame will take cold," Marie ventured to remark.

"Madame is not so fragile as she looks," was my reply. A crunching sound below made me start and look down. Surely I could not be mistaken. My husband and Captain Dillington were in the garden, slowly walking up and down, arm-in-arm. They were smoking placidly, and conversing in low, earnest tones, between puffs. I sent Marie to bed with a promptitude which must have caused her considerable astonishment. Truly by this time her ideas of English customs must have been of the Munchausen order. I did not know Arthur was so fond of nocturnal rambles. How glad I should have been had he asked me to join him. Perhaps he supposed that I was a delicate little reared-in-the-lap-of-luxury maiden, and felt that my wifely duties consisted in looking pretty and sitting at the head of the dinner-table. What a mistake he made!

I could see the two men distinctly, though they could not detect me behind the pretty plants that adorned my windows. I could hear them talking, though it was impossible to distinguish