This was too much for Pen. “Well, I think it was a ridiculous thing to have said.”
“You see, she knows nothing of the world, Pen,” he said earnestly. “Then, too, she is impulsive! Do you know, she always makes me think of a bird?”
“A goose, I suppose,” said Pen somewhat tartly.
“I meant a wild bird,” he replied, with dignity. “A fluttering, timid, little—”
“She didn’t seem to me very timid,” Pen interrupted. “In fact, I thought she was extremely bold to ask a perfectly strange young man to pretend to be in love with her.”
“You don’t understand her. She is so trusting! She needs someone to take care of her. We have loved one another ever since our first meeting. We should have been married by now if my father had not picked a foolish quarrel with the Major. Pen, you cannot think what our sufferings have been! There seems to be no end to them! We shall never induce our fathers to consent to our marriage, never!”
He sank his head in his hands with a groan, but Pen said briskly: “Well, you will have to marry without their consent. Only you both of you seem to be so poor-spirited that you will do nothing but moan, and meet in woods! Why don’t you elope?”
“Elope! You don’t know what you are saying, Pen! How could I ask that fragile little thing to do anything of the sort? The impropriety, too! I am persuaded she would shrink from the very thought of it!”
“Yes, she did,” agreed Pen. “She said she would not be able to have attendants, or a lace veil.”
“You see, she has been very strictly reared—has led the most sheltered life! Besides, why should she not have a lace veil, and—and those things which females set store by?”