"That's just like a woman," he said. "They are always popping up new and different views of things, and that is a view I hadn't thought of. Is that what you intend to do?"
"No," said Edna, "I do not intend to do anything. All I wish is to hold myself in such a position that I can act when the time comes to act."
Ralph took the whole matter to bed with him in order to think over it. He did a great deal more sleeping than thinking, but in the morning he told Edna he believed she was right.
"But one thing is certain," he said: "even if that heathen marriage should not be considered legal, it was a solemn ceremony of engagement, and nobody can deny that. It was something like a caveat which people get before a regular patent is issued for an invention, and if you want him to do it, he should stand up and do it; but if you don't, that's your business. But let me give you a piece of advice: wherever you go and whatever you do, until this matter is settled, be sure to carry around that two-legged marriage certificate called Cheditafa. He can speak a good deal of English now, if there should be any dispute."
"Dispute!" cried Edna, indignantly. "What are you thinking of? Do you suppose I would insist or dispute in such a matter? I thought you knew me better than that."
Ralph sighed. "If you could understand how dreadfully hard it is to know you," he said, "you wouldn't be so severe on a poor fellow if he happened to make a mistake now and then."
When Mrs. Cliff found that Edna had determined upon her course, she ceased her opposition, and tried, good woman as she was, to take as satisfactory a view of the matter as she could find reason for.
"It would be a little rough," she said, "if your friends were to meet you as Mrs. Horn, and you would be obliged to answer questions. I have had experience in that sort of thing. And looking at it in that light, I don't know but what you are right, Edna, in defending yourself against questions until you are justified in answering them. To have to admit that you are not Mrs. Horn after you had said you were, would be dreadful, of course. But the other would be all plain sailing. You would go and be married properly, and that would be the end of it. And even if you were obliged to assert your claims as his widow, there would be no objection to saying that there had been reasons for not announcing the marriage. But there is another thing. How are you going to explain your prosperous condition to your friends? When I was in Plainton, I thought of you as so much better off than myself in this respect, for over here there would be no one to pry into your affairs. I did not know you had friends in Paris."
"All that need not trouble me in the least," said Edna. "When I went to school with Edith Southall, who is now Mrs. Sylvester, my father was in a very good business, and we lived handsomely. It was not until I was nearly grown up that he failed and died, and then Ralph and I went to Cincinnati, and my life of hard work began. So you see there is no reason why my friends in Paris should ask any questions, or I should make explanations."
"I wish it were that way in Plainton," said Mrs. Cliff, with a sigh. "I would go back there the moment another ship started from France."