“What’s all this galimatias about?” says she, but she turned her face away, and played with the lace on her sleeve. “Han’t I told you long ago that I had no heart? The worst you can say of me is that I’m marrying him to please him.”
“True, miss—and the best is that you’re marrying him to please yourself.”
“You’re a piece of impudence,” says she. “Do you realise that in an hour or so I shall be a married woman? I protest I’ll teach you your place, Miss Sylvia Freyne. To please myself, indeed!”
But I went round softly, and, lifting her chin, looked into her face. “Don’t tell me that it don’t please you, miss,” I said, “for your own countenance would give you the lie. There!” and I embraced her very heartily, “you have sought to deceive me long enough. Now tell me the whole truth.”
“Why, what can I tell you?” says she, meekly. “You know I promised the gentlemen that my wedding should be such as had never been seen in Calcutta before (and I can tell you, miss, I would not have left you still single to triumph over me for anything less), and sure it’s true, for there’s not a soul knows of it but my uncle and aunt Hamlin and the Padra, and yourself.”
“But not Mr Hurstwood, miss—truly?”
“Truly. ’Tis my final test for him, whether he’ll marry me all on a sudden, with no time to devise a new suit of clothes for the ceremony. All he knows is that he may at any moment find himself summoned to the trial.”
“But where’s the wedding to be, miss?”
“In the saloon here, of course.”
“Oh, miss, not in the church? These chamber-marriages seem to me to lack something—I don’t know what. I can understand them in the case of persons objecting to public notice, but you’ve no reason for that. I should scarce feel that I was married if ’twas not done in church.”