"
"I know," King nodded. "I learned that, too, last spring."
"Of course you did. And now, instead of going to work, I've got to take
this blamed sea voyage of a month. Van and Leaver are pretty hard on me,
don't you think? The consolation in that, though, is that my wife needs
it quite as much as I do. I want to tan those cheeks of hers. Len, will
you wear the brown tweeds on shipboard?"
"Of course I will. How your mind seems to run to clothes to-night. What
will Your Highness wear himself?"
"The worst old clothes I can find. Then when I get back I'll go to the
tailor's and start life all over again, with the neatest lot of stuff he
can make me--a regular honeymoon effect." Burns laughed, lifting his
chin with the old look of purpose and power touching his thin face.
"I'm happy to-night," he went on; "there's no use denying it. I'm not
sorry, now it's over, I've had this experience, for I've learned some
things I've never known before and wouldn't have found out any other
way. I know now what it means to be down where life doesn't seem worth
much, and how it feels to have the other fellow trying to pull you out.
I know how the whisper of a voice you love sounds to you in the middle
of a black night, when you think you can't bear another minute of pain.
Oh, I know a lot of things I can't talk about, but they'll make a
difference in the future. If I don't have more patience with my patients
it'll be because memory is a treacherous thing, and I've forgotten what
I have no business to forget--because the good Lord means me to
remember!"
CHAPTER XVI
WHITE LILACS AGAIN
It was the first day of May.
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