Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/168

 "How soon?" Herbert had asked.

"Whenever you like."

The date was finally set for May, and after some argument, a country wedding was decided on. Now it was the country house which engrossed Henry and Katherine's interest. All through March and into April they made small chilly pilgrimages out to the country. Each opening bud had significance. As early as the ground could be worked men were digging and sowing. Borders were planted and replanted. And if Katherine now and then looked at Kay with furtively anxious eyes, the excitement seemed to be doing her good.

There ought to be new hangings in the long drawing room, and perhaps in the hall. And there were some old French chairs at Morley's still in the original brocade. However, since most of the furniture would be moved out anyhow, perhaps not the chairs. But the curtains. Yes. Certainly the curtains.

Kay seemed hardly to have finished writing the notes for her engagement presents when the wedding gifts started to come in. Herbert was frightfully excited about them, although he strove to conceal it. He would call up from town—they had moved out again to the country—and ask her about them.

"What's come in this morning?"

"I really don't know. A lot of boxes; they haven't been opened yet."

That was always a small grievance to him.

"But great scott, darling! There are about fifteen men around the place. Can't some of them get to work?"

In the evenings he spent most of his time in the three upper rooms where, on long tables and minus their cards, of course, the gifts lay in glittering rows; and one evening he brought out a book, a sort of ledger, and began to enter them for insurance.

"But we have a book already," she said, somewhat exasperated. "Everything is in it; who sent them, the shop they came from"

"This is a different matter," he told her, in a voice so