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"Forsaking all others, so long as we both shall live," he said,
unsteadily.
"So long as we both shall live," she repeated.
However she had to take it off later, for Mrs. Wheeler, it developed,
had very pronounced ideas of engagement rings. They were put on the day
the notices were sent to the newspapers, and not before. So Elizabeth
wore her ring around her neck on a white ribbon, inside her camisole,
until such time as her father would consent to announce that he was
about to lose her.
Thus Elizabeth found her engagement full of unexpected turns and twists,
and nothing precisely as she had expected. But she accepted things
as they came, being of the type around which the dramas of life are
enacted, while remaining totally undramatic herself. She lived her quiet
days, worried about Jim on occasion, hemmed table napkins for her linen
chest, and slept at night with her ring on her finger and a sense of
being wrapped in protecting love that was no longer limited to the white
Wheeler house, but now extended two blocks away and around the corner to
a shabby old brick building in a more or less shabby yard.
They were very gay in the old brick house that night before the
departure, very noisy over the fish and David's broiled lamb chop. Dick
demanded a bottle of Lucy's home-made wine, and even David got a little
of it. They toasted the seashore, and the departed nurse, and David
quoted Robert Burns at some length and in a horrible Scotch accent.
Then Dick had a trick by which one read the date on one of three pennies
while he was not looking, and he could tell without failing which one
it was. It was most mysterious. And after dinner Dick took her into his
laboratory, and while she squinted one eye and looked into the finder of
his microscope he kissed the white nape of her neck.
When they left the laboratory there were patients in the waiting-room,
but he held her in his arms in the office for a moment or two, very
quietly, and because the door was thin they made a sort of game of it,
and pretended she was a patient.
"How did you sleep last night?" he said, in a highly professional and
very distinct voice. Then he kissed her.
"Very badly, doctor," she said, also very clearly, and whispered, "I lay
awake and thought about you, dear."
"I'd better give you this sleeping powder." Oh, frightfully
professional, but the powder turned out to be another kiss. It was a
wonderful game.