"It would be delightful!" she cried.
"n.o.body to know till it"s done!"
"Yes, yes, I like it like that. Not father even, though?"
"You"ll be gone before he"s up. Leave a line for him."
"But I--I can"t go alone with you."
"Why not?" asked Harry, seeming a trifle vexed.
"I"ll tell you!" she cried. "Let"s take Mina with us, Harry!"
He laughed; the Imp was the one person whose presence he was ready to endure. Indeed there would perhaps be a piquancy in that.
"All right. An elopement made respectable by Mina!" He had a touch of scorn even for mitigated respectability.
"Shall we call her and tell her now?"
"Well, are you tired of this interview?"
"I don"t know whether I want it to go on, or whether I must go and tell somebody about it."
"I shouldn"t hesitate," smiled Harry.
"You? No. But I--Oh, Harry dear, I want to whisper my triumph."
"But we must be calm and business-like about it now."
"Yes!" She entered eagerly into the fun. "That"ll puzzle Mina even more."
"We"re not doing anything unusual," he insisted with affected gravity.
"No--not for our family at least."
"It"s just the obvious thing to do."
"Oh, it"s just the delicious thing too!" She almost danced in gayety.
"Let me call Mina. Do!"
"Not for a moment, as you love me! Give me a moment more."
"Oh, Harry, there"ll be no end to that!"
"I don"t know why there should be."
"We should miss the train at Fillingford!"
"Ah, if it means that!"
"Or I shall come sleepy and ugly to it; and you"d leave me on the platform and go away!"
"Shout for Mina--now--without another word!"
"Oh, just one more," she pleaded, laughing.
"I can"t promise to be moderate."
"Come, we"ll go and find her. Give me your hand." She caught his hand in hers, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the candle from the table. She held it high above her head, looking round the room and back to his eyes again. "My home now, because my love is here," she said. "Mine and yours, and yours and mine--and both the same thing, Harry, now."
He listened smiling. Yes, it would be the same thing now.
There they stood together for a moment, and together they sighed as they turned away. To them the room was sacred now, as it had always been beautiful; in it their love seemed to lie enshrined.
They went downstairs together full of merriment, the surface expression of their joy. "Look grave," he whispered, setting his face in a comical exaggeration of seriousness. Cecily tried to obey and tumbled into a gurgle of delight.
"I will directly," she gasped as they came to the hall. Mason stood there waiting.
"I"ve put the sandwiches here, and the old brown, my Lord."
Harry alone noticed the slip in his address--and Harry took no notice of it.
"I shall be glad to meet the old brown again," he said, smiling. Mason gave the pair a benevolent glance and withdrew to his quarters.
Mina strolled out of the library with an accidental air. Harry had sat down to his sandwiches and old brown. Cecily ran across to Mina and kissed her.
"We"re going to be married!" she whispered. She had told it all in a sentence; yet she added; "Oh, I"ve such a heap of things to tell you, Mina!" Was not all that scene in the Long Gallery to be reproduced--doubtless only in a faint adumbration of its real glory, yet with a sense of recovering it and living it again?
"No?" cried Mina. "Oh, how splendid! Soon?"
Harry threw a quick glance at Cecily. She responded by a.s.suming a demure calmness of demeanor.
"Not as soon as we could wish," said Harry, munching and sipping. "In fact, not before the day after to-morrow, I"m afraid, Madame Zabriska."
"The day after----?"
"What I have always hated is Government interference. Why can"t I be married when I like? Why have I to get a license and all that nonsense?
Why must I wait till the day after to-morrow?" He grew indignant.
"It"s past twelve now; it is to-morrow," said Cecily.
"Quite so. As you suggest, Cecily, we could be married to-day but for these absurd restrictions. There"s a train at eight from Fillingford----"
"You"re going--both of you--by that?" Mina cried.
"I hope it suits you, because we want you to come with us, if you"ll be so kind," said Harry.
"You see it would look just a little unusual if we went alone," added Cecily.