"There is no other way," Molly said, as dictatorially as when she had ordered the servant to admit her lover. "You must carry me off, and it must be the day after to-morrow at half-past twelve. My granduncle leaves for his castle at that time, and my father and mother go with him to the railway-station; they always make so much of him. Meanwhile, we can slip off conveniently. We'll travel as far as Gretna Green, wherever that is,--I have read that there are no tiresome preliminaries to be gone through with there,--and we can return as man and wife. Then all my dead ancestors may stand on their heads, and so may my granduncle, for that matter, if I may only belong to you."
This entire scheme was advanced in a tone of assured conviction, but it did not meet with the expected approval; Gersdorf said, gravely and decidedly,--
"No, Molly, that will not do."
"Not? Why not?"
"Because there are laws and injunctions which expressly forbid such romantic excursions. Your fanciful little brain has no conception as yet of life and its duties; but I know them, and it would ill become me, whose vocation it is to defend the law, to trample it underfoot."
"What do I care for laws and injunctions?" said Molly, deeply offended by this cool rejection of her romantic scheme. "How can you talk of such prosaic things when our love is at stake? What are we to do if papa and mamma persist in saying no?"
"First of all we must wait until your granduncle has really gone home. There is nothing to be done with that stiff old aristocrat; in his eyes I, as a man without a title, am perfectly unfitted to woo a Baroness Ernsthausen. As soon as his influence is no longer present in your household I shall surely have an interview with your father, and shall try to overcome his prejudice; it will be no easy task, but we must have patience and wait."
The little Baroness was thunderstruck at this declaration, this utter ruin of all her air-built castles. Instead of the romantic flight and secret marriage of which she had dreamed, here was her lover counselling patience and prudence; instead of bearing her off in his arms, he talked as if he were ready to institute legal proceedings for her possession. It was altogether too much, and she burst out angrily, "You had better declare at once that you do not care for me, after all; that you have not the courage to win me. You talked very differently before we were betrothed. But I give you back your troth; I will part from you forever; I----" Here she began to sob. "I will marry some man with no end of ancestors whom my granduncle approves of, but I shall die of grief, and before the year is out I shall be in my grave."
"Molly!"
"Let go my hand!" But he held it fast.