The colonel deliberated this information; and he appeared to understand.
"So Parkinson has gone the way of Pevensey,—. and of I wonder how many others? Well, may Heaven be very gracious to us both!" he said. "For I am going to do it."
Then composedly he took up the telephone upon his desk and called Roger
Stapylton.
"I want you to come at once to Dr. Rabbet's,—yes, the rectory, next door to St. Luke's. Patricia and I are to be married there in half an hour. We are on our way to the City Hall to get the license now…. No, she might change her mind again, you see…. I have not the least notion how it happened. I don't care…. Then you will have to be rude to him or else not see your only daughter married…. Kindly permit me to repeat, sir, that I don't care about that or anything else. And for the rest, Patricia was twenty-one last December."
The colonel hung up the receiver. "And now," he said, "we are going to the City Hall."
"Are you?" said Patricia, with courteous interest. "Well, my way lies uptown. I have to stop in at Greenberg's and get a mustard plaster for the parrot."
He had his hat by this. "It isn't cool enough for me to need an overcoat, is it?"
"I think you must be crazy," she said, sharply.
"Of course I am. So I am going to marry you."
"Let me go—! Oh, and I had thought you were a gentleman—."