VIII
I DO not know what was in Val’s note: more of good-bye, and more than a thousand hopes, I imagine. Is it fanciful to mark that she had always said “hope” and never “confidence”? Mine bade me be at a certain corner of a certain street at eleven-thirty. “Where you will find me. Say nothing about it.” It was a little hard to say nothing whatever to Jane.
I went and met them at the corner—Mrs Something Simpson, Kirby, and Miss Constantine. Thence we repaired to a registry office, and they (I do not include Mrs Simpson) were married. They were to sail from Liverpool that afternoon, and we went straight from the office to Euston. I think it was only when the question of luggage arose that I gasped out, “Where are you going?”
“To Canada,” said Kirby briskly.
“For your trip?”
“For good and all,” he answered. “I’ve got leave—and sent in my resignation.”
“And I’ve sent in my resignation too,” she said. “Mr Wynne, try to think of me as only half a coward.”
“I—I don’t understand,” I stammered.
“But it’s your own doing,” he said. “Over there she won’t be a failure all her life!”
“Not because I’ve married him, at any rate,” Katharine said, looking very happy.
“I told you I should settle it—and so I did,” Kirby added. “And I’m grateful to you. I’m always grateful to a fellow who makes me understand.”
“Good heavens!” I cried. “You’re not making me responsible?”
“For all that follows!” she answered, with a merry laugh. “Yes!”
That’s all very well, but suppose he gets to the top of the tree, as the fellow will, and issues a Declaration of Independence? At least he’ll be Premier, and come over to a conference some day. Val will be Secretary for the Colonies, probably (unless he has come that cropper). There’s a situation for you! Well, I shall just leave town. I daresay I sha’n’t be missed.
Lady Lexington carried it off well. She said that, from a strain of romance she had observed in the girl, the marriage was just what was to be expected of Katharine Constantine.