ONLY those who have gone through the ceremony of a mock marriage, from the gentlest motives¹, and have soothed² the solicitude³ of a beloved and invalid⁴ aunt by the gift of the marriage certificate thus obtained, can have any idea of the minor⁵ difficulties which beset⁶ the path of the really unselfish. Had the ceremony been one in which either party was deceived as to its real nature the sequent embarrassments⁷ would have been far less. The first and greatest was the question of names. The persons mentioned in the certificate now bedewed by the joyful⁸ tears of the invalid aunt, and scorched⁹ by the fierce fires of a first-class family row, were committed, so far as the family and the world knew, to a wedding-journey. That is to say, Mr. and Mrs. Basingstoke, after posting the certificate, were to proceed on their honeymoon¹⁰. But cold mock marriages claim no honeymoon. So far the only explanation of the relations of the now mockly married had been[175] made to Mr. Schultz across the peaches in the sunned and shadowy arbor¹¹ at Tunbridge Wells. To Mr. Schultz the two were brother and sister. To travel as Mr. and Mrs. Basingstoke presented difficulties almost insurmountable—to pursue their wanderings as Mr. and Miss Basingstoke involved bother about letters and the constant risk of explanations to any of the friends and relations of either across whose path fate might be spiteful enough to drive them. Because, of course, your friends and relations know how many brothers and sisters you have and what they look like, and those sort of people never forget. You could never persuade them that the young man with whom you were traveling was a brother whom they had overlooked or forgotten. A long silence in the train that meant to go to Warwick was spent by each in the same tangle¹² of puzzle and conjecture¹³. They had the carriage to themselves. Her eyes were on the green changing picture framed by the window; his eyes noted¹⁴ the firm, pretty line of her chin, the way her hair grew, the delicate charm of the pale roses under the curve of her hat-brim—the proud carriage of head and neck; he liked the way she held herself, the way her hands lay in her lap, the self-possession and self-respect that showed in every line of that gracious figure.
 
 
The four walls of the carriage seemed to shut them in with a new and deeper intimacy¹⁵ than yesterday's. He would have liked to hold her hand as he had held it on the way to Richmond—to have her shoulder lightly touching¹⁶ his and to sit by her and watch the changing of that green picture from which she never turned her eyes. And all the time the two alternatives seesawed¹⁷ at the back of his mind: "Mr. and Mrs. or Mr. and Miss?"
 
Her eyes suddenly left the picture and met his. In that one glance she knew what sort of thoughts had been his, and knew also quite surely and unmistakably, as women do know such things, that the relations between them had been changed by that mock marriage—that now it would not be he who would make the advances. That he was hers for the asking, she knew, but she also knew that there would have to be asking, and that asking hers. She knew then, as well as she knew it later, that that act had set a barrier between them and that his would never be the hand to break it down; a barrier strong as iron, behind which she could, if she would, remain alone forever—and yet a barrier which, if she chose that it should be so, her choice could break at a touch, as bubbles are broken. She felt as perhaps a queen in old romance might have felt traveling through the world[177] served only by a faithful knight¹⁸. That they had held each other's hand on their wedding-day had been an accident. This would never happen again—unless she made it happen.
 
"We must have our letters sent to the post-offices where we go," she said, suddenly, turning to the problem at the back of her mind. "Then the aunts can call me 'Mrs.' when they write to me. I suppose they'll want to call me that?"
 
"Mrs. Basingstoke," he said, slowly. "Yes, it seems likely that they will want to."
 
"Then," she went on, "we needn't pretend to the hotel people that we're married. They'd be sure to find out we weren't, or something, and we should always be trembling on the perilous¹⁹ edge of detection. I couldn't bear to be always wondering whether the landlord had found us out."
 
"It would be intolerable," he agreed, deeply conscious of the admirable way in which she grasped this delicate nettle²⁰. "Whereas. . . ."
 
"Whereas if we're Mr. and Miss Basingstoke at our hotels, and Mr. and Mrs. at the post-office, it's all as simple as the Hebrew alphabet."
 
"The Hebrew. . . ?"
 
"Well, it's not quite as simple as A B C, but very nearly. So that's settled."
 
"What," he asked, hastily, anxious to show his sense of a difficulty avoided, a subject dismissed—"what do you think about when you look out of the windows in trains? Or don't you think at all—just let the country flow through your soul as though it were music?"
 
"One does that when one's in it," she answered, "in woods and meadows and in those deep lanes where you see nothing but the hedges and the cart-tracks—and on the downs—yes. But when you look out at the country it's different, isn't it? One looks at the churches and thinks about all the people who were christened and married and buried there, and then you look at the houses they lived in—the old farm-houses more than anything. Do you know, all my life I've wished I'd been born a farmer's daughter. All the little things of life in those thatched homesteads are beautiful to me. The smell of the wood smoke, and the way all your life is next door to out-of-doors—always having to go out and feed the calves²² or the pigs or the fowls²³, and always little young things, the goslings and the ducklings and the chicks—you know how soft and pretty they are. And all these lovely little live things dependent on you. And the men as well—they come home tired from their work and you have their meals all ready—the bread you've baked yourself, and the pasties you've made—perhaps, even, you brew²¹ the beer and salt the pork—and they come[179] in, your husband and your father and your brothers, and they think what a good housekeeper²⁴ you are, and love you for it. Or if you're a man yourself, all your work's out of doors with the nice, clean earth and making things grow, and seeing the glorious seasons go round and round like a splendid kaleidoscope; and in the winter coming home through the dusk and seeing the dancing light of your own hearth-fire showing through the windows, till you go into the warm, cozy²⁵ place, and then the red curtains are drawn²⁶ and the door is shut, and you're safe inside—at home."
 
He felt in every word a new intimacy, a new confidence. For the first time she was speaking to him from the heart without afterthought and without reservations. And he knew why. He knew that the queen, confident and confiding²⁷, spoke²⁸ to the faithful knight. And the matter of her speech no less than its manner enchanted²⁹ him so that he could think of nothing better to say than:
 
"Go on—tell me some more."
 
"There isn't any more, only I think that must have been the life I lived in my last incarnation, because a little house in the country—any little house, even an old turnpike cottage—always seems to call out to me, 'Here I am! Come home! What a long time you've been away!'"
 
 
"And yet," he said, and felt, as he said it, how stupid he was being—"and yet you love traveling and adventure—seeing the world and the wonders of the world."
 
"Ah!" she said, "that's my new incarnation. But what the old one loved goes deeper than that. I love adventure and new bits of the world as I love strawberries and ice-cream, and waltzing and Chopin, but the little house in the green country is like the daily bread of the heart."
 
"I understand you," he said, slowly. "I understand you in the only possible way. I mean that's the way I feel about it, too. If you were really my sister, what a united family the last of the Basingstokes would be."
 
"Do you really feel the same about it—you, too?" she asked. "Oh, what a pity I wasn't born Basingstoke, and we would have lived on our own farm and been happy all our lives."
 
He would not say what he might have said, and her heart praised him for not saying it. And so at last they came to Warwick, and Charles had bounded from the dog-box all pink tongue and white teeth and strenuous³⁰ white-covered muscles, and knocked down a little boy in a blue jersey³¹, who had to be consoled by chocolate which came out of the machine like the god in the Latin tag. And then all the luggage was retrieved—there was[181] getting to be a most respectable amount of it, as she pointed³² out—and it and they and Charles got into a fly (for there are still places where an open carriage bears that ironic³³ name) and drove through the afternoon sunshine to the Warwick Arms. But when they were asked to write their names in the visitors' book, each naturally signed a Christian³⁴ name, and the management, putting two and two together, deduced Mr. and Mrs. Basingstoke, and entered this result in more intima............