Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/29

"I never gave the subject any consideration, Mr. Herwin."

"Then," he said, wheeling, "consider it now!"

A cataract of rain swept down from the trees over our heads, and drowned the words off his lips. A street light looked over the wall. I could see the broken bottles glisten, and a faint electric pallor flitted over that part of the garden by the tree-house in the Porter apple-tree. Now, the tree-house has a little thatched roof, and it is n't quite so wet in there, though it is only lattice at the sides, and sometimes I go in there when my storms are particularly wet—for nobody would think what a difference there is in storms; some of them are quite dry.

"Come!" said the secretary. And he took hold of my hand as if he had been an iron man. Of course all he meant was to put me into the driest wetness there was till the torrent held up a little; but when I found myself alone in that tree-house in the storm, in the dark, with that man, I could have stabbed him with something, if I had had anything sharp about me. But I had the sense left not to say so.

"I 've always wanted a name for this tree-house," I began; "now I 've got it."

And the man said "Ararat!" before I got the word out. I did n't suppose he was that kind of man. And I began to feel quite comfortable