"What?" he jested. "You are going to refuse my suit?"
She turned and clung to him with a passionate, even fierce intensity, but she did not lift her face again to his. Her voice came muffled against his breast. "I could never refuse you—anything."
"Eh, bien! Then all is well!" he declared. "My bride will hold her own wherever she goes, save with her husband. And to him she will yield her wifely submission at all times. Do you know what they will say—all of them—when they hear that Charles Rex is married at last?"
"What?" whispered Toby apprehensively.
He bent his head, still laughing. "Shall I tell you? Can't you guess?"
"No. Tell me!" she said.
He touched the soft ringlets of her hair with his lips. "They will say,
'God help his wife!' mignonne. And I—I shall answer 'Amen'."
She lifted her face suddenly and defiantly, her eyes afire. "Do you know what I shall say if they do?" she said.
"What?" said Saltash, his own eyes gleaming oddly.
"I shall tell them," said Toby tensely, "to—to—to go to blazes!"