"Well," said Mary, "let's get a license."
Max spread forward the palms of his dark hands.
"How can ve?" he demanded. "The City Hall closes in the afternoon un' don't open till mornin'."
Here, apparently, was tragedy. Specific reasons for its tragic elements the girl would, perhaps, have found it hard to give, but that it was tragic she knew instinctively. Her blue eyes opened wide in fright.
"What are we to do?" she pleaded.
But Max, the resourceful, had been, it appeared, only temporarily checkmated.
"I thought of that," he said. "Ve can't get married now till to-morrow; but my modder has a good friend un' I delephone her. She told me she'd be glad to have you her guest ofer to-nighd. I'll take you there in a taxi, un' go home for my own sleep. I'd take you vith me, but it vouldn't do to spring a new vife on the family vithout varnin'. Then I'll have talked vith my own people, und I'll bring them around to the veddin', first thing in the mornin'."
Mary, however, quailed.
"I don't want to do that," she inconsequently responded. "I don't want to go to strange people's alone."
"Oh, don't you vorry, now," Max soothed her. "I'll go vith you for a liddle vhile un' see that you make yourself at home. This friend of my modder's is a fine voman, un' she's rich. She is Mrs. Légère. She lives in a fine house: you'll like her."