His manner was a trifle puzzling. It indicated a good deal of earnestness and some concern to enforce whatever it was he meant to say; but there was an inflection of exultation in his voice:
"I'm going to upset all our arrangements, Helen. You needn't have any wedding cards printed at all."
"Oh Edgar!" she cried in distress. "What has happened? Are you ruined in your business, dear? Tell me what it is?"
"No, I'm not ruined—not in my business at least," he added, with a meaning to which Helen had no clew. "On the contrary, my prospects were never so good before. But you don't need any wedding invitations, dear, because we must be married to-night. We leave by the midnight train for a wedding journey to New York."
"But, Edgar, how absurd!"
"Yes, I know it's absurd. Many things I do are so. But it must be, all the same. I have just had the returns from this election. It has gone as I wished, and that involves a good many things—among them an immediate journey to New York, and perhaps a stay of several weeks there. I have only been waiting till Mikey brought me certain news of the result before telling you about this."
"You mean to tell me that you have sat there chatting with me all this time, with that in your mind, and not telling me a word about it?"
"I couldn't, you know. You told me not to talk."
"You don't deserve that I should marry you at all."
"I know it. I've told you so all along. But the same thing is true of every other man in the world, and so you will have to put up with it."