asleep between two possum rugs, debating as to whether he should wake her to see it. But he decided to let her sleep on. Then he turned the Diana into the mouth of the Otamatea River, the Wairoa’s neighbouring waterway.
This dawn journey was the beginning of a honeymoon planned since Valerie’s recovery from the election. Having given way in the larger issue by consenting to go through the ceremony, Valerie demanded that she have her own way about some things connected with it. She would never have agreed to marry Dane in any ordinary fashion. The affair had to be served up to her as romance and adventure, as far as possible removed from the vulgar eyes of the world and the dull ways of convention. She would have in connection with it none of the trappings of the social world. She had no time to arrange for a trousseau. She refused an engagement ring, and swore she would never wear the wedding badge of servitude. Dane was astonished to find in all this how deeply the wordy paraphernalia of a conventional set had antagonized her, and amused to see, as he continually reminded her, that she gave it a significance it did not deserve. However, he let her talk. Without saying anything about it, he ordered clothes for her from Sydney, for he demanded that love be adorned in fine raiment. And he gave in to her in the end on the matter of having the marriage kept secret as long as she chose. They had had considerable argument about this.
“I wish to go on as I should if we did not have the ceremony, Dane. I want to stay on the paper. I want to go on earning my own living. I can’t sit about in your house doing nothing. I should be bored to death in a month. At least that’s how I feel now. Of course, in three months’ time I may be feeling differently. But now I want the work. I don’t want love to become a
