“Of course,” she excused herself. “Of course, dear, I see.”
“Well, where was I? Frightfully cheap, so the screw won't matter. I'll take the job, dearest. I'll take it for next month. And—listen—we'll marry and go up there together and live in some ripping little rooms. There!”
She was flaming pink; could only breathe: “Georgie, dear!”
He stopped his pacing to give her a squeezing hug, a kiss upon the top of the gold hair. Then he went through the steps of a wild dance. “Marry!” he cried. “Marry, old girl, and let everybody go hang! We'll have to work it through a registrar. I'm not quite sure how it's done, but I'll find out tomorrow. I know you both have to have been resident in the place for a week or so—I'll fix all that. Then we'll peg along up in the North; and we'll look out for whatever turns up, and we'll save, and in time we'll buy a practice just like Runnygate.”
Now he sat beside his Mary again; with a tremendous brush painted in more details of this entrancing picture. Every doubt, every difficulty he threw to tomorrow—that glad sea in which youth casts its every trouble. Was he sure he still had the refusal of this locum?—rather! but he would make certain, tomorrow. Was he sure they both could live upon the salary?-rather! he would prove it to-morrow. Could they really get married at a registrar's within a few days?-rather! he'd fix that up to-morrow. As to the money necessary for the marriage, necessary to tide over the days till the locum was taken up, why, he knew he could borrow that—from the Dean or from Professor Wyvern—to-morrow.
They were upon the very crest and flood of their delight when George noted the gathering dusk.
“I say, it's getting late!” he exclaimed. “I must fix it up with Mrs. Pinking. We've made no arrangement with her yet.”
Mary agreed: “Yes, dear.” She went on, pretty eyes shining, face aglow: “Oh, Georgie, think of the last time you brought me here! I had nothing to expect but going out to work again; and you weren't qualified. And now—now, although we've lost our little Runnygate home” (she could not stop a tiny sigh), “we're actually going to be married in a few days! Georgie, I shan't sleep for hoping everything will turn out all right to-morrow.”
“It will,” George told her. “It will. Right as rain, old girl.”
Her great sigh of contentment advertised the drink she took of that sparkling future. “Think of us being together always in a week or so—belonging! Where will you stay till then? Quite close. Get a room quite close, Georgie?”