“Not even Harry?”
She ran off into the Kursaal, saying she must seek her mother. But instead of seeking her mother, Geraldine passed straight through the concert-hall, where a thousand and one wondrously attired women were doing fancy needle-work to the accompaniment of a band of music, into the maze of corridors beyond, and so to the rear entrance of the Kursaal on the Boulevard van Isoghem. Here she met Mr. Harry Vaux-Lowry, who was most obviously waiting for her. They crossed the road to the empty tramway waiting-room and entered it and sat down; and by the mere act of looking into each other’s eyes, these two—the stiff, simple, honest-faced young Englishman with “Oxford” written all over him, and the charming child of a civilisation equally proud, but with fewer conventions, suddenly transformed the little bureau into a Cupid’s bower.
“It’s just as I thought, you darling boy,” Geraldine began to talk rapidly. “Father’s the least bit in the world scared; and when he’s scared, he’s bound to confide in someone; and he’s confided in that sweet Mr. Thorold. And Mr. Thorold has been requested to reason with me and advise me to be a good girl and wait. I know what that means. It means that father thinks we shall soon forget each other, my poor Harry. And I do believe it means that father wants me to marry Mr. Thorold.”
“What did you say to him, dear?” the lover demanded, pale.
“Trust me to fool him, Harry. I simply walked round him. He thinks we are going to be very good and wait patiently. As if father ever would give way until he was forced!”
She laughed disdainfully. “So we’re perfectly safe so long as we act with discretion. Now let’s clearly understand. To-day’s Monday. You return to England to-night.”
“Yes. And I’ll arrange about the licence and things.”
“Your cousin Mary is just as important as the licence, Harry,” said Geraldine primly.
“She will come. You may rely on her being at Ostend with me on Thursday.”
“Very well. In the meantime, I behave as if life were a blank. Brussels will put them off the scent. Mother and I will return from there on Thursday afternoon. That night there is a soirée dansante at the Kursaal. Mother will say she is too tired to go to it, but she will have to go all the same. I will dance before all men till a quarter to ten—I will even dance with Mr. Thorold. What a pity I can’t dance before father, but he’s certain to be in the gambling-rooms then, winning money; he always is at that hour! At a quarter to ten I will slip out, and you’ll be here at this back door with a carriage. We drive to the quay and just catch the 11.5 steamer, and I meet your cousin Mary. On Friday morning we are married; and then, then we shall be in a position to talk to father. He’ll pretend to be furious, but he can’t say much, because he eloped himself. Didn’t you know?”