"You don't understand," she said. "I am not opposed to marriage—with a man who is willing to make some concession, some slight sacrifice, to gratify me. But are you that kind of man, Theodore, I wonder?"
I saw that she was already beginning to yield. "I would do anything—anything in the world you bid me," I cried, "if only you will be my wife, Lurana."
"I should ask you to do nothing that I am not perfectly prepared to do myself," she said. "A temporary inconvenience, a risk which is the merest trifle. Still, you may think it too much, Theodore."
"Name it," I replied. "The opportunities which the tea trade affords for the cultivation of heroism are rare; but there are few risks that I would shrink from running with you."
"It is only this," she said. "I don't want a commonplace wedding. I want one that will be talked about and make a sensation. Will you let me be married in my own way?"
I was rather relieved by what seemed so moderate a demand. "Certainly, darling," I said; "we will be married in Westminster Abbey, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, if you wish it, and it can be arranged. What matter where or how the ceremony take place, or what it costs, provided it makes you mine for ever?"
"Let us be married in the Lion's Cage."
"Then, Theodore," she said, pressing my arm impulsively with her slim fingers, while the rays of a street lamp in the square fell on her upturned face and shining eyes, "let us be married at the Agricultural Hall—in the Lions' Cage!"
I confess to being considerably startled. I had expected something rather out of the common, but nothing in the least like this.