With a returning suspicion that something might have betrayed him to her, he answered, interrogatively, 'My godfathers and my godmothers, dear love?'
'Pretty good!' said Bella. 'Not goodest good, because you hesitate about it. However, as you know your Catechi** fairly, so far, I'll let you off the rest. Now, I am going to examine you out of my own head. John dear, why did you go back, this evening, to the question you once asked me before--would I like to be rich?'
Again, his secret! He looked down at her as she looked up at him, with her hands folded on his knee, and it was as nearly told as ever secret was.
Having no reply ready, he could do no better than embrace her.
'In short, dear John,' said Bella, 'this is the topic of my lecture: Iwant nothing on earth, and I want you to believe it.'
'If that's all, the lecture may be considered over, for I do.'
'It's not all, John dear,' Bella hesitated. 'It's only Firstly. There's a dreadful Secondly, and a dreadful Thirdly to come--as I used to say to myself in sermon-time when I was a very small-sized sinner at church.'
'Let them come, my dearest.'
'Are you sure, John dear; are you absolutely certain in your innermost heart of hearts--?'
'Which is not in my keeping,' he rejoined.
'No, John, but the key is.--Are you absolutely certain that down at the bottom of that heart of hearts, which you have given to me as Ihave given mine to you, there is no remembrance that I was once very mercenary?'
'Why, if there were no remembrance in me of the time you speak of,' he softly asked her with his lips to hers, 'could I love you quite as well as I do; could I have in the Calendar of my life the brightest of its days; could I whenever I look at your dear face, or hear your dear voice, see and hear my noble champion? It can never have been that which made you serious, darling?'
'No John, it wasn't that, and still less was it Mrs Boffin, though Ilove her. Wait a moment, and I'll go on with the lecture. Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious, John dear, to cry for joy.'
She did so on his neck, and, still clinging there, laughed a little when she said, 'I think I am ready now for Thirdly, John.'
'I am ready for Thirdly,' said John, 'whatever it is.'
'I believe, John,' pursued Bella, 'that you believe that I believe--'
'My dear child,' cried her husband gaily, 'what a quantity of believing!'
'Isn't there?' said Bella, with another laugh. 'I never knew such a quantity! It's like verbs in an exercise. But I can't get on with less believing. I'll try again. I believe, dear John, that you believe that I believe that we have as much money as we require, and that we want for nothing.'
'It is strictly true, Bella.'
'But if our money should by any means be rendered not so much--if we had to stint ourselves a little in purchases that we can afford to make now--would you still have the same confidence in my being quite contented, John?'
'Precisely the same confidence, my soul.'
'Thank you, John dear, thousands upon thousands of times. And Imay take it for granted, no doubt,' with a little faltering, 'that you would be quite as contented yourself John? But, yes, I know Imay. For, knowing that I should be so, how surely I may know that you would be so; you who are so much stronger, and firmer, and more reasonable and more generous, than I am.'
'Hush!' said her husband, 'I must not hear that. You are all wrong there, though otherwise as right as can be. And now I am brought to a little piece of news, my dearest, that I might have told you earlier in the evening. I have strong reason for confidently believing that we shall never be in the receipt of a smaller income than our present income.'
She might have shown herself more interested in the intelligence;but she had returned to the investigation of the coat-button that had engaged her attention a few hours before, and scarcely seemed to heed what he said.
'And now we have got to the bottom of it at last,' cried her husband, rallying her, 'and this is the thing that made you serious?'
'No dear,' said Bella, twisting the button and shaking her head, 'it wasn't this.'
'Why then, Lord bless this little wife of mine, there's a Fourthly!' exclaimed John.
'This worried me a little, and so did Secondly,' said Bella, occupied with the button, 'but it was quite another sort of seriousness--a much deeper and quieter sort of seriousness--that I spoke of John dear.'
As he bent his face to hers, she raised hers to meet it, and laid her little right hand on his eyes, and kept it there.
'Do you remember, John, on the day we were married, Pa's speaking of the ships that might be sailing towards us from the unknown seas?'
'Perfectly, my darling!'
'I think...among them...there is a ship upon the ocean...bringing...to you and me...a little baby, John.'