“I am not different from the rest of my sex! I only meant that I should not at all care for such a wedding as you describe. I went to one once, in London, and oh, dear! it was so shockingly unromantic!”
He smiled. “I collect that you would prefer a runaway match, with a fast team of post-horses, the Scottish border for your goal, and an angry Papa in hot pursuit?”
She replied seriously: “Well, I scarcely remember my Papa, for he died when I was a child, but I think runaway weddings are the best, for to elope suddenly with someone you — you have a decided partiality for, and to become his wife without the least contrivance, or ceremony, or preparation, is — would be — the most beautiful adventure imaginable! Like finding yourself all at once in heaven, or fairyland, at least, when you had never thought but that you would continue in the same humdrum fashion all your life.”
His eyes wrinkled a little at the corners, but he said solemnly: “Miss Wantage, do you read novels?”
“Why, yes!” she answered, looking inquiringly at him.
“From the Minerva Press, perhaps?”
Her inquiring look turned to one of suspicion. “Mr Tarleton, you are bam-laughing at me again!”
“No, no!” he said. “I am merely taking a great delight in the refreshment of your company! Plainly, only the most dashing of bridegrooms will do for you!”
The tenderest little smile hovered on her lips. “Yes,” she acknowledged.
“A Blood, a Tulip of Fashion, a Nonpareil — ”