“And you think this … this friend knew?”
“I know,” he replied earnestly, “that he knew, or he would not have spoken to me as he did. He knows that my whole life is in your exquisite hands—he knows that our happiness is somehow threatened by that man Martin-Roget. How he obtained that information I could not guess … he had not the time or the inclination to tell me. I flew to make all arrangements for our marriage tonight and prayed to God—as I have never prayed in my life before—that you, dear heart, would deign to consent.”
“How could I refuse when Lady Blakeney advised? She is the kindest and dearest friend I possess. She and your friend ought to know one another. Will you not tell me who he is?”
“I will present him to you, dear heart, as soon as we are married,” he replied with awkward evasiveness. Then suddenly he exclaimed with boyish enthusiasm: “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it! It is the most extraordinary thing in the world. …”
“What is that, milor?” she asked.
“That you should have cared for me at all. For of course you must care, or you wouldn’t be sitting here with me now … you would not have consented … would you?”
“You know that I do care, milor,” she said in her grave quiet way. “How could it be otherwise?”
“But I am so stupid and so slow,” he said naively. “Why! look at me now. My heart is simply bursting with all that I want to say to you, but I just can’t find the words, and I do nothing but talk rubbish and feel how you must despise me.”
Once more that humorous little smile played for a moment round Yvonne de Kernogan’s serious mouth. She didn’t say anything just then, but her delicate fingers gave his hand an expressive squeeze.
“You are not frightened?” he asked abruptly.
“Frightened? Of what?” she rejoined.
“At the step you are going to take?”
“Would I take it,” she retorted gently, “if I had any misgivings?”
“Oh! if you had. … Do you know that even now …” he continued clumsily and haltingly, “now that I have realised just what it will mean to have you … and just what it would mean to me, God help me—if I were to lose you … well! … that even now I would rather go through that hell than that you should feel the least bit doubtful or unhappy about it all.”
Again she smiled, gently, tenderly up into his eager, boyish face.
“The only unhappiness,” she said gravely, “that could ever overtake me in the future would be parting from you, milor.”
“Oh! God bless you for that, my dear! God bless you for that! But for pity’s sake turn your dear eyes away from me or I vow I shall go crazy with joy. Men do go crazy with joy sometimes, you know, and I feel that in another moment I shall stand up and shout at the top of my voice to all the people in the room that within the next few hours the loveliest girl in all the world is going to be my wife.”
“She certainly won’t be that, if you do shout it at the top of your voice, milor, for father would hear you and there would be an end to our beautiful adventure.”
“It will be a beautiful adventure, won’t it?” he sighed with unconcealed ecstasy.
“So beautiful, my dear lord,” she replied with gentle earnestness, “so perfect, in fact, that I am almost afraid something must happen presently to upset it all.”
“Nothing can happen,” he assured her. “M. Martin-Roget is not here, and His Royal Highness is even now monopolising M. le duc de Kernogan so that he cannot get away.”
“Your friend must be very clever to manipulate so many strings on our behalf!”
“It is long past midnight now, sweetheart,” he said with sudden irrelevance.
“Yes, I know. I have been watching the time: and I have already thought everything out for the best. I very often go home from balls and routs in the company of Lady Ffoulkes and sleep in her house those nights. Father is always quite satisfied, when I do that, and tonight he will be doubly satisfied feeling that I shall be taken away from your society. Lady Ffoulkes is in the secret, of course, so Lady Blakeney told me, and she will be ready for me in a few minutes now: she’ll take me home with her and there I will change my dress and rest for awhile, waiting for the happy hour. She will come to the church with me and then … oh then! Oh! my dear milor!” she added suddenly with a deep sigh whilst her whole face became irradiated with a light of intense happiness, “as you say it is the most wonderful thing in all the world—this—our beautiful adventure together.”
“The parson will be ready at half-past six, dear heart, it was the earliest hour that I could secure … after that we go at once to your church and the priest will tie up any loose threads which our English parson failed to make tight. After those two ceremonies we shall be very much married, shan’t we? … and nothing can come between us, dear heart, can it?” he queried with a look of intense anxiety on his young face.
“Nothing,” she replied. Then she added with a short sigh: “Poor father!”
“Dear heart, he will only fret for a little while. I don’t believe he can really want you to marry that man Martin-Roget. It is just obstinacy on his part. He can’t have anything against me really … save of course that I am not clever and that I shall never do anything very big in the world … except to love you, Yvonne, with my whole heart and soul and with
