"Trust me for that," was the answer. "There are few things I can't do when I make up my mind. Admit the principle, and everything else is easy! Keep it dark, you know. In the first place you've got to promise to be my wife. We don't breathe a word to any living being. Then one fine morning we go out and get the knot tied: at a registry office, a church, anywhere you like."
"I shouldn't feel that I was properly married," said Bridget, "unless I went to church."
"Then you will!" urged Colonel Faversham, half beside himself with satisfaction.
"Please let me hear the whole scheme," she insisted.
"Don't you see," he explained, "you and I—my dear little wife—would be off somewhere abroad. Anywhere you choose!"
"Italy," said Bridget. "We would travel through to Milan, then on to
Rome, Naples, Capri—Capri would be delightful."
"My darling!"
"But," she continued, "your plan is quite out of the question. I hate anything resembling secrecy. Surely you don't imagine that if I married you I shouldn't want every one to know."
"Why, naturally," said the colonel. "We should send Carrissima a telegram from Paris. The point is that she wouldn't know what had happened until we were out of reach. By the time we got back to Grandison Square she would have learnt to take a sensible view of the accomplished fact. So would Lawrence."
"Oh dear, you sound like a child who is bent on doing something he ought to be ashamed of!"