“How old are you?” the clergyman asked of Wollaston; but Gladys cut in again.
“He's nineteen, and she's goin' on,” she replied, shamelessly.
“We are neither of us,” began Wollaston, whose mind was in a whirl of anger of confusion.
But the clergyman interrupted him. “I am ashamed of you, young man,” he said, “luring an innocent young girl to New York and then trying to lie out of your responsibility.”
“I am not,” began Wollaston again; but then the man who had stood in the door entered with a portly woman in a black silk tea-gown. She looked as if she had been dozing, or else was naturally slow-witted. Her eyes, under heavy lids, were dull; her mouth had a sleepy, although good-natured pout, like a child's, between her fat cheeks.
“I am sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Jerrolds,” said the clergyman, “but I need you and Williams for witnesses.” Then he proceeded.
Neither Wollaston nor Maria were ever very clear in their minds how it was done. Both had thought marriage was a more complicated proceeding. Neither was entirely sure of having said anything. Indeed, Wollaston was afterwards quite positive that Gladys Mann answered nearly all the clergyman's questions; but at all events, the first thing he heard distinctly was the clergyman's pronouncing him and Maria man and wife. Then the clergyman, who was zealous to the point of fanaticism, and who honestly considered himself to have done an exceedingly commendable thing, invited them to have some wedding-cake, which he kept ready for such emergencies, and some coffee, but Wollaston replied with a growl of indignation and despair. This time Maria followed his almost brutally spoken command to follow him, and the three went out of the house.
“See that you treat your wife properly, young man,” the clergyman called out after him, in a voice half jocular, half condemnatory, “or there will be trouble.”
Wollaston growled an oath, the first which he had ever uttered, under his breath, and strode on. He had released his hold on Maria's arm. Ahead of them, a block distant, was an Elevated station, and Maria, who seemed to suddenly recover her faculties, broke into a run for it.
“Where be you goin'?” called out Gladys.