Part 74 (1/2)
”What, midnight!” she cried, starting up. ”I must go.”
”No, no;” he took her hand.
”Yes, yes; don't you know, at the stroke of midnight I change back to a governess.”
”Well, the magic didn't work, for that clock's very slow. Sit down, please.”
”You have spoken the omen. I remain Nelly O'Neill and drop Eileen for ever. _Vogue la galere._”
”Absit omen!” He shuddered.
”Why not? What do you offer me? The love of one man. But my public loves me as one man--with a much more voluminous love--I love it in return. Why should I change?”
”Shall we say merely because the public changes? I am constant.”
”Yes, you are very wonderful.... And if it's to-morrow already, my fate will be settled to-day. Drink to my destiny.”
”I drink to our destiny,” he said, raising his gla.s.s.
”No. Only to mine. It will be decided this afternoon.”
”You will give me your answer this afternoon?” he cried joyfully.
”I don't say that. It's my answer I shall know this afternoon. Yours you shall have to-morrow afternoon. You don't mind giving me one day's option of your hand?”
”One day's! When you have had--”
She interrupted impatiently. ”Let bygones be bygones. You shall have a letter by Monday afternoon. But, oh, Heavens! how could we marry? You believe in nothing!”
”There's the Registrar.”
She pouted: ”Dry legality. No flowers, no organ, no feeling sweet and virginal in a long veil. Oh, dear! Besides, there's mother--”
”I don't object to the church ceremony.”
”I'm glad. The law may end marriage. Marriage shouldn't begin with law.
It ought to look beautiful at the start, at least, though one may know it's a shaky scraw.”
”A shaky what?”
”Oh, it's an Irish term for a bit of black bog that looks like lovely green meadow. You step out so gaily on the glittering gra.s.s, and then squis.h.!.+ squas.h.!.+ down you go to choke in the ooze.”
”Don't be so pessimistic. It would be much more sensible to think of marriage as solid meadow-land after your present scramble over a shaky what-d'ye-call it.”
”True for you! I give you the stage as the shakiest of all scraws. But where _is_ solid footing to be found? The world itself is only a vast bog that sucks in the generations.”
”I am sorry I asked you to be serious,” he said glumly. ”You're such a quick-change artiste.”
”I must quickly a.s.sume the governess or I'll lose my character,” she said, rising resolutely.