"That"s the right spirit! I like to see it! All right, we won"t. Let"s get back to the main issue. Will you marry me?"
"But why did you come to the house at all?"
"To see you."
"To see me! At that time of night?"
"Well, perhaps not actually to see you." Sam was a little perplexed for a moment. Something told him that it would be injudicious to reveal his true motive and thereby risk disturbing the harmony which he felt had begun to exist between them. "To be near you! To be in the same house with you!" he went on vehemently feeling that he had struck the right note. "You don"t know the anguish I went through after I read that letter of yours. I was mad! I was ... well, to return to the point, will you marry me?"
Billie sat looking straight before her. The car, now on the main road, moved smoothly on.
"Will you marry me?"
Billie rested her hand on her chin and searched the darkness with thoughtful eyes.
"Will you marry me?"
The car raced on.
"Will you marry me?" said Sam. "Will you marry me? Will you marry me?"
"Oh, don"t talk like a parrot," cried Billie. "It reminds me of Bream."
"But will you?"
"Yes," said Billie.
Sam brought the car to a standstill with a jerk, probably very bad for the tires.
"Did you say "yes"?"
"Yes!"
"Darling!" said Sam, leaning towards her, "Oh, curse this helmet!"
"Why?"
"Well, I rather wanted to kiss you and it hampers me."
"Let me try and get it off. Bend down!"
"Ouch!" said Sam.
"It"s coming. There! How helpless men are!"
"We need a woman"s tender care," said Sam depositing the helmet on the floor of the car, and rubbing his smarting ears. "Billie!"
"Sam!"
"You angel!"
"You"re rather a darling after all," said Billie. "But you want keeping in order," she added severely.
"You will do that when we"re married. When we"re married!" he repeated luxuriously. "How splendid it sounds!"
"The only trouble is," said Billie, "father won"t hear of it."
"No, he won"t. Not till it is all over," said Sam.
He started the car again.
"What are you going to do?" said Billie. "Where are you going?"
"To London," said Sam. "It may be news to you but the old lawyer like myself knows that, by going to Doctors" Commons or the Court of Arches or somewhere or by routing the Archbishop of Canterbury out of bed or something, you can get a special license and be married almost before you know where you are. My scheme-roughly-is to dig this special license out of whoever keeps such things, have a bit of breakfast, and then get married at our leisure before lunch at a registrar"s."
"Oh, not a registrar"s!" said Billie.
"No?"
"I should hate a registrar"s."
"Very well, angel. Just as you say. We"ll go to a church. There are millions of churches in London. I"ve seen them all over the place." He mused for a moment. "Yes, you"re quite right," he said. "A church is the thing. It"ll please Webster."
"Webster?"
"Yes, he"s rather keen on the church bells never having rung out so blithe a peal before. And we must consider Webster"s feelings. After all, he brought us together."
"Webster? How?"
"Oh, I"ll tell you all about that some other time," said Sam. "Just for the moment I want to sit quite still and think. Are you comfortable? Fine! Then off we go."
The birds in the trees fringing the road stirred and twittered grumpily as the noise of the engine disturbed their slumbers. But, if they had known it, they were in luck. At any rate, the worst had not befallen them, for Sam was too happy to sing.
THE END