"No," he said, "only to take care that you did not put on that thin dress. And to see that you were alive," he added, dropping his voice.
"And we really are to be married this morning?"
"We really are, Elizabeth. In three quarters of an hour, if you can be at the church so soon. I am on my way there now. I am just going round to Myrtle Street to pick up old Brion."
"Pick up young Brion, too," she urged earnestly, thinking of Patty. "Tell him I specially wished it."
"He won't come," said Mr. Yelverton; "I asked him yesterday. His father says his liver must be out of order, he has grown so perverse and irritable lately. He won't do anything that he is wanted to do."
"Ah, poor boy! We must look after him, you and I, when we come back. Where are we going, Kingscote?"
"My darling, I fear you will think my plans very prosaic. I think we are just going to Geelong—till to-morrow or next day. You see it is so cold, and I don't want you to be fagged with a long journey. Mount Macedon would have been charming, but I could not get accommodation. At Geelong, where we are both strangers, we shall be practically to ourselves, and it is better to make sure of a good hotel than of romantic scenery, if you have to choose between the two—for the present, at any rate—vulgar and sordid as that sentiment may appear. We can go where we like afterwards. I have just got a telegram to say that things will be ready for us. You left it to me, you know."
"I am only too happy to leave everything to you," she said, at once. "And I don't care where we go—-it will be the same everywhere."
"I think it will, Elizabeth—I think we shall be more independent of our circumstances than most people. Still I am glad to have made sure of a warm fire and a good dinner for you at your journey's end. We start at twenty minutes past four, I may tell you, and we are to get home—home, my dear, which will be wherever you and I can be together, henceforth—at about half-past six. That will give you time to rest before dinner. And you will not be very tired, after such a little journey, will you?"
"Elizabeth!" called a voice from the corridor above their heads, "send Mr. Yelverton away, and come upstairs at once."