The wedding was arranged to take place within a week of Captain Paget's expressly declared wish. It was to be solemnised at a church near Knightsbridge, and again at a Catholic chapel in the neighbourhood of Sloane-street; by which double ceremonial a knot would be tied that no legal quibble could hereafter loosen. Charlotte was just sufficiently recovered to obtain permission to be present at the ceremonial, after some little exercise of her persuasive powers with the medical practitioner to whose care Dr. Jedd had committed her when all danger was past.
The Captain protested, with an eager insistence, that the wedding breakfast should be eaten at his domicile.
"And Val," he said, "be sure Val is with you. I have a secret to tell him—a kind of atonement to make; some news to give him that he won't quite relish, perhaps. But that's no fault of mine."
"No bad news, I hope, papa; for Charlotte's sake as well as for
Valentine's."
"That depends upon how they both take it. Your friend Charlotte is not particularly fond of money, is she?"
"Fond of money, papa? A baby knows as much of the value of money as Lotta. Except to give to beggars in the streets, or to buy pretty frivolous presents for her friends, she has neither use nor desire for money. She is the most generous, most disinterested of created beings."
"I'm very glad to hear it," said the Captain, drily. "And how about
Hawkehurst, now? Do you think it was a real love-match, his marriage with
Miss Halliday? No arrière pensée—no looking out for the main chance at
the bottom of his romantic attachment, eh, Di?"
"No, papa. I am sure there was never truer love than his. I saw him under most trying circumstances, and I can pledge myself for the truth of his devotion."
"I am very glad to hear it. Be sure you bring Hawkehurst and his wife to my little breakfast. A chicken, a pine, a bottle of sparkling hock, and a fond father's blessing, are all I shall give you; but the chicken and the hock will be from Gunter, and the blessing from the bottom of a paternal heart."
* * * * *