Alayne found Eden in the summerhouse, a vine-smothered, spiderish retreat, with a very literary-looking pipe in his mouth, his arms folded across his chest, and a thoughtful frown indenting his brow.
"May I come?" she breathed, fearing to disturb him, yet unable to endure the separation any longer.
He smiled an assent, gripping the pipe between his teeth.
"Have you begun the—you know what?"
"I do not know what."
"The n-o-v-e-l," she spelled.
He shook his head. "No; but I've written a corking thing. Come in and hear."
"A poem! I am so glad you are really beginning to write again. It is the first, you know, since we have been married, and I was beginning to be afraid that instead of being an inspiration—"
"Well, listen to this and tell me whether I'm the better or worse for being married."
"Before you begin, Eden, I should just like to remark the way the sunlight coming in through those vines dapples your hair and cheek with gold."
"Yes, darling, and if you had been here all morning you might have remarked how the insect life took to me. They let themselves down from every corner and held a sort of county fair on me, judging spider stallions, fat ladybugs' race, and earwig baby show. In each case the first, second, third, and consolation prize was a bite of me."
