Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/236

 replied. "You see only the handsome and gallant knight seated on a swift charger, risking his life; but when you remember that knights were sometimes plain, that their horses were heavy, lumbering creatures, and that their combats were no more deadly than a football-match or a glove-fight"

"Please don't," she laughed. "You would strip romance from a honeymoon."

"To me a honeymoon is as unromantic as a German dinner," continued Drewitt. "It's the stripping of the tinsel from the idol. It is intimacy that ruins marriage, intimacy and carelessness."

"Carelessness?" she queried.

"Yes," replied Drewitt, polishing his monocle with great care. "I've heard of men selecting for a honeymoon a place that involved a sea voyage. The risk is criminal."

"I wish I weren't so stupid," she said in mock despair. "What risk?"

"The risk of your adored one having a queasy stomach."

"Oh, please don't," she protested. "What a dreadful expression."

"As the boat gets further from land, the beloved grows greener and greener, until at last she makes a bolt"

"Stop ! Oh, please, stop!" cried Lola.

"I'm sorry if I have undermined your belief in the romantic," said Drewitt, "but there are certain facts in life that must be faced."