"
She drew closer and closer to him, and looked at him in a way that
threatened betrayal of her bridal character.
"Isabel, you will be having your head on my shoulder, next," said he.
"Never!" she answered fiercely, recovering her distance with a start.
"But, dearest, if you do see me going to--act absurdly, you know, do stop
me."
"I'm very sorry, but I've got myself to stop. Besides, I didn't undertake
to preserve the incognito of this bridal party."
If any accident of the sort dreaded had really happened, it would not
have mattered so much, for as yet they were the sole occupants of the
waiting room. To be sure, the ticket-seller was there, and the lady who
checked packages left in her charge, but these must have seen so many
endearments pass between passengers,--that a fleeting caress or so would
scarcely have drawn their notice to our pair. Yet Isabel did not so much
even as put her hand into her husband's; and as Basil afterwards said, it
was very good practice.
Our temporary state, whatever it is, is often mirrored in all that come
near us, and our friends were fated to meet frequent parodies of their
happiness from first to last on this journey. The travesty began with the
very first people who entered the waiting-room after themselves, and who
were a very young couple starting like themselves upon a pleasure tour,
which also was evidently one of the first tours of any kind that they had
made.
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