All this at headlong speed, spoken as fast as he could form and utter the words. As he ended he opened the hand that had been fumbling at a pocket and showed her the ring—her engagement ring—lying in his palm.
She seemed to stumble and fall sideways against the wall, and his arm went out to steady her.
"Oh!" she gasped. "And mama? What of mama?"
"We'll run away and get married." His words were as wild as her own. "We'll tell no one. We'll fly. And afterward—afterward—" But there he stuck.
"And mama?" she said again. "And mama?"
He was sure now that for him she was the only woman in the world. "We will live abroad," he said heartily. "Ceylon, Yukon, or some place"—his imagination surely had limitations this evening—"and we will never come back."
Rosamond at length achieved control.
"Mama will never leave us in peace," she declared. "Mama will find us wherever we go. Believe me, mama is quite set against the marriage. She will not have it. And she says if it goes forward ever, she'll surely take you away from me. I can't tell you what awful things she's told me—things you've said to her. Terrible things."
At that he paled and loosed her hand. Certainly the corridor was far too public for this kind of conversation; and yet all he could sense was the odor of probable triumph—the exaltation, the exhilaration of winning out.
Never mind the mother; that selfish, narrow-viewed American grass-widow, who had her little way of having her little way on all occasions and under all circumstances.