Of course he wished it, and yet what should he say to her? Being a mere man and knowing something of such a nature as this, her threat had a meaning he did not dare to ignore. What if she refused to go to London with him? Would people blame him? He heard already the horrible malice of those who would declare that he had decoyed her from her home. The world, so far as it concerned him, would say that he was a scoundrel; his whole life had taught him to care for such censure when the greater issues were at stake. Oh! she had put him in a pretty fix; and yet he loved her and had discovered that he could not leave her though ten thousand railed upon him.
"Don't you understand, Gipsy," he protested in despair, "these things cannot be done just like that? I'm going to marry you, and no one alive shall stop me. But I can't do it in five minutes. We shall have to get a licence and swear we've lived in Brighton heaven knows how long. Then there's the church people to see—and, of course, the Silvesters must know. It would be shabby to keep them in the dark. My dearest, why do you cry? Don't you see I can't make it different just because I love you? Won't you understand?"
She looked up at him through her tears.
"You do love me, Harry?"
"More than anything on earth, little Gipsy. So help me God! it's true. I couldn't leave you now if I wanted to. Put your arms round my neck and tell me you believe it. There, just like that—and don't say another word about going away, or I don't know what will happen to you."
He pulled her on to his knees and held her close to him. She had twenty schemes in her head, but the one she liked best was the suggestion that her fifty pounds would bribe the priest to an immediate ceremony. For herself, the thing was of little account. He had taught her that it did not matter as long as a man loved a woman, and beyond that was a knowledge of the world almost terrible in its savage conceptions of right and wrong.
"In my country," she said naïvely, "we go away to the hills when we are in love, and no one thinks we have done wrong. I have seen dreadful things, Harry; I saw them at Ranovica when 'the boss' went there with my father. Oh! do not think I am the simple baby that you English like their wives to be. The world was very unkind to him and to me. Sometimes, for many days together we have slept at the hotel of the Belle Étoile, and he would sell our clothes for bread. Once, at Perpignan, we were put in prison, and I did not see him for a week. It was there he met a fellow-countryman who bought us from the judge and took us to Scutari. His relations were great people, but he would never ask anything of them, he was too proud. Some day, when you and I are rich, we will go to Bukharest and tell them who we are. Perhaps we will walk all the way, as he and I did from Dijon to Nîmes, when the money was gone. Dear heart! what a walk it was, and all the acacias were blooming and the scent of the hay in the fields and the white farms at night—and, yes, the old abbé who was so gentle and good. He called me 'little daughter'—it was near Valence, and I know that if you and I had gone to him, he would have married us. Perhaps, if you cannot bribe the priest here, we will take the steamer and go now. Oh, how good it will be in the warm hay when the sun shines! And we could get money at the cafés and perhaps in Bukharest; it would be true what he told me, and his friends would be a little kind. Will you not take me, Harry? Shall we not go to the sun together, away from this dreadful country? Oh, how happy I would be! How my life would be changed if you would go. Dearest, will you not do it when Maryska asks you?"
She pressed her hot cheek upon his hand and held his hands as though she never would release them. If her confessions startled him, he perceived in them an acquaintanceship with life and its realities far surpassing his own. He had led a humdrum existence enough apart from his cricket; but here was one who could lift the veil of romance as no story-book had done. The word pictures of the joyous life moved him strangely by their suggestions of a freedom which was all-embracing; of a garden of love whereon the sun would ever shine! And from that, it was like him to tumble suddenly to realities and to remember the loaves and the fishes. She must be very hungry, he thought. What course more obvious than to take her to the hotel, and to give her some food?
"By Jove! I forgot all about it," he cried, lifting her on to her feet, and so snatching at her hat. "We'll go to the Metropole and have some grub, Gipsy! Aren't you hungry, little wild cat? Don't you think you could eat me? Come along, then. It will be time to talk about all this afterwards. We can wire the Silvesters as we go; let 'em do what they like, Gipsy. I shan't part with you now; never again, I swear."
She shook her head, and was but half satisfied. The kindly minister of the gospel stood to her for an ogre who would make light of the Belle Étoile, but much of that ancient office beginning with "Dearly beloved," and ending with the ecclesiastical blessing.