“Oh, you dear!” whispered Jill softly. “It is nice to have someone wanting you so badly as all that. I won’t slip through though; I am far too comfortable where I am.”
Chapter Ten.
The following day, St. John entered the studio with a face the gravity of which boded no good for their plans, Jill feared. She knew at once that his father had refused to countenance the match, and although she had not dared to hope for his sanction, the knowledge that he had positively denied it came upon her with a sense of shock. Not for one moment did she think of resenting his objection, nor of questioning his right to forbid the marriage, she just crept within the shelter of St. John’s arms and stayed there, her face, with its flush of mortification, hidden against his breast.
“The governor’s a silly old fool,” St. John exclaimed savagely, thinking less, perhaps, of the girl’s discomfort than his own personal grievances. “He’s cut me off with nothing—at least five hundred pounds; he gave me a cheque for that amount before giving me the kick out.”
“We won’t take it,” Jill cried wrathfully with the improvident contempt of the penniless, “We won’t touch a farthing of it, will we?”
“Oh; yes, we will,” he answered. “We’ll get married on it in the first place, and then live on the rest for so long as it will last.”
“I wouldn’t get married on that five hundred pounds for anything,” Jill said firmly.
“Well, I’m going to,” he replied, “I’m going to see about it now. We’ll go before a Registrar—much nicer than Church, you know, doesn’t take so long. And then I’m going to invest the rest with a little capital that I have by me in a snug little business—haberdashery, or something of the kind; I’m not quite sure what, though I thought about nothing else all last night.”