Page:Poor Cecco - 1925.djvu/39

Rh is bound to become monotonous after a time, even when you are married to a person.”

“I don’t agree with you,” said Gladys. “It is perhaps true that he seemed more intelligent before we were married, but that was probably due to shyness. He is extremely elegant, and after all what more can you want?’

“Domestic life is boring,” said Virginia May, “and what’s more, it makes people stupid and conceited. I intend to keep my independence.” And she made a movement to smooth out her skirts, but remembering that to-night she had none, sat with her hands folded stiffly on her lap, staring out at the potato patch.

“She is jealous,” thought Gladys. “That is because she has no wedding-dress, but what can I do? These things are arranged for one by fate.”

Ida sighed. Romantic by nature, she was doomed to spend her life listening to other people’s confidences. No one ever thought of falling in love with her, and yet she had all the qualifications for an ideal wife.

Anna now was different. Anna held her head high. She stood now in the moonlight, serene on her little green meadow, her two glass eyes, set almost on the top of her woolly head, staring of necessity straight up into the sky. It gave her a rather stupid expression, but the lion did not notice that. He thought she was beautiful. He thought, in fact, she was the most beautiful person in the world.

“I adore you!” he said to her now for the hundredth