“He told me that, and a lot more.”
“Did you quarrel?”
“We—said things. But I couldn’t treat Bower as I handled Georgie. I was forced to admit his good taste, you see.”
“Well, dear, promise me——”
“That I sha’n’t slay him! Why, Helen, if he is half the man I take him for, he will come to our wedding. I told Mrs. de la Vere I should bring you back, and she agreed that there was nothing else to be done.”
The color ebbed and flowed on Helen’s face at an alarming rate. “What in the world are you talking about?” she asked, with a calm severity that her fluttering heart denied.
Spencer laughed so happily that Pietro, who understood no word of what his voyageurs were saying, gave Bartelommeo a sapient wink.
“Well, now,” he cried, “wouldn’t we be the queerest pair of zanies to go all that long way to London to get married when a parson, and a church, and all the needful consular offices are right here under our noses, so to speak. Why, we have a ready-made honeymoon staring us in the face. We’ll just skate round Switzerland after your baggage and then drop down the map into Italy. I figured it all out last night, together with ’steen methods of making the preliminary declaration. I’ll tell you the whole scheme while we—Oh, well, if you’re in a real hurry to cross the glacier, I must defer details and talk in headlines.”
For Helen, absolutely scarlet now, had risen with a tragic air and bade the guides prepare for instant departure.