“Why not?” she answered. “You know he was to send me. I promised my mother I would let him take care of me. But now that I’m going to be married, my—my—husband will take care of me.”
She looked at him with a girl’s charming embarrassment at the first fitting of this word to any breathing man, and blushed deeply and beautifully. Essex felt he must disillusion her. He looked into the fire.
“Married,” he said slowly. “Well, of course, if we were married—”
He stopped, gave her a lightning side glance. She was smiling.
“Well, of course we’ll be married,” she said. “How could we go to Europe unless we were?”
Still avoiding her eyes, which he knew were fixed on him in smiling inquiry, he said in a lowered voice:
“Oh, yes, we could.”
“How—I don’t understand?”
For the first time there was a faint note of uneasiness in her voice. Though his glance was still bent on the fire, he knew that she was no longer smiling.
“We could go easily, without making any talk or fuss. Of course we could not leave here together. I’d meet you in Chicago or New York.”