The Passionate Elopement

THE PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT

NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 1916
BALLANTINE AND CO. LTD., TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON
TO FAITH

The PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT
THE meagre sun that for thirteen pallid February days had shone with no more brilliance than a rushlight stuck amid the cobwebs of a garret, poured down at last his profuse glories, and Curtain Wells woke up to a fine morning and the burden of conscious existence, with an effort all the more completely unanimous on account of its reputation as an inland Spa. Residence there implied an almost monastick ideal of regularity. Other shrines of Æsculapius, falling from their primitive purity of worship, might set up for adoration a hooped Venus or bag-wigged Cupid, but Curtain Wells would never admit so naked and misleading a pair of Immortals. Her fountains ministered to bodily ailments—Vapours, Winds, Gouts, Quinsies, Consumptions, Fevers quartan and tertian—without pretending to the power of love-philtres or the sparkle of the Castalian Spring. 'Tis true, romantick dusk or sunset candlelight might consecrate the vows of many a shepherd and shepherdess, but those stretched hours of dalliance were always understood to be the sensuous reward of a strict matutinal discipline.
Consequently Curtain Wells woke up as to a bugle-call. Casement-hangings were flung back, shutters unbarred and, wonderful to relate, an occasional window-sash creaked and subsided. A simultaneous toilet would be followed by a simultaneous visit to the cleansing springs. Drums, routs, auctions, ridottos, and masquerades did not avail to keep their votaries abed. Perchance a velvet patch would hide the wearer's secret blemish less artfully; beneath young Miss Kitcat's eyes there might be a deeper violet than the state of her health warranted; my lady Bunbutter newly arrived from scurrilous Bath might see her nose sharpen to a richer carmine point; but half-past eight o'clock would behold them all bound for the Pump Room, somewhat reticent perhaps, a little fretful even, yet completely subjugated by their self-imposed renunciation.