So it seemed, in love's first bloom. And yet, circumstances being as
they were, it was hardly possible that Carlisle should at one stroke
completely cut herself off from the past, as Florrie Willing constantly
did, as the French people once did, by means of their well-known
Revolution.

In Hugo's absence (full as the days were with questions of the
trousseau, rendered doubly exciting by mamma's princely attitude toward
expense), Carlisle began to recognize once more the landmarks of her
former environment. Doubtless a certain period of emotional reaction was
inevitable, and with it the reassociation of ideas began. Canning was
away a solid month. One day soon after his return,--it was on a lovely
afternoon in early May, as they were motoring homeward after four hours'
delightful _tête-à-tête_ in Canning's own car,--Carlisle said to him:

"Oh, Hugo, what do you think I did while you were away? Subscribed a
hundred dollars to a Settlement House! My own money, too,--not papa's
at all!"

Hugo, whose intensity of interest in his betrothed seemed only to have
increased during the days of absence, cried out at her munificence.

"So, you've money, in those terms--well!" said he. "Aren't you mortally
afraid of being gobbled up by a fortune-hunter some fine day?"

"A _great_ many people have warned me about that--mentioning you
specially, by the way. But I've always told them that you loved me for
my fair face alone."

Canning made a lover's remark, a thoroughly satisfactory one.