He naturally agreed, whereupon Evarne and Philia indulged in a brief whispered debate concerning the menu for the evening meal. At length the old dame took her departure, thoroughly well satisfied with her own hitherto unsuspected cleverness.
CHAPTER XL
A FRESH COMPLICATION
Immediately they were alone Geoff seized Evarne by both hands, and holding her at arm's length, surveyed her from head to foot, as if for the first time.
"Evarne, Evarne! to think that by to-morrow evening you will be my wife! Can you realise it? I hardly can."
"I'm not going to try," she asserted. "It doesn't do to make too certain of anything in this world. Perhaps we shan't be able to get a special licence."
"Oh, it's quite simple. A friend of mine was married by that means. We have to make solemn affidavits that there is no legal impediment. Then it is essential that the ceremony shall take place in the parish where one of us has lived for a certain length of time. You won't mind being married in church?"
"Oh no."
"Besides getting the licence, then, all we have to do is to arrange with a clergyman, and there need not be an hour's delay. It's not even necessary to heed the canonical hours. I'd better go down to Doctors Commons almost immediately and see about it."