“But there is an obstacle to our marriage,” she whispered, “perhaps an insuperable one. Had it not been so, I should have said ‘yes,’ last night.”
“Dollars can overcome all obstacles,” replied the colonel. “What is it? I guess it’ll make no difference between us.”
“I have a little nephew, the orphan child of an only sister, now deceased, and I will marry no man who asks me to leave him behind.”
“That man won’t be myself, Mrs. der Vin-yay. Bring him along, by all means. There’s room in the States for another boy or two, and I’ll do by him as if he were my own.”
“Oh! you are too good, too good,” exclaimed Lucille fervently, as she pressed his hand.
The Senator was not young, and in no mind to wait, besides which he was anxious to get back to his own country, so, as the lady’s wishes appeared to coincide with his own, they arranged matters to their mutual satisfaction that evening, and in a fortnight were married at a registrar’s office in London, without anyone but themselves being the wiser for the transaction. Lucille had pleaded for secrecy, lest her friends should interfere to prevent her leaving England, and the colonel had arrived at that age when a man detests all publicity and fuss. So Mme. de Vigny was transformed into Mrs. Colonel Clutterbuck as if by magic, and went home to the Langham Hotel with her husband, as if they had been married for twenty years. Four days after a well-known steamer was to start from Liverpool for New York, and their cabins were already secured on board of her.
“And now!” said Lucille, with a winning smile, the day before they started, “you must let me run down into Suffolk, colonel, and fetch my little nephew.”
“Suffolk? That’s a long way,” said Colonel Clutterbuck. “Hadn’t I better go for you?”
“Oh, no! no! I couldn’t hear of it. The little fellow would be frightened out of his senses at the sight of a stranger. He is terribly sensitive. I can never coax him away, but by pretending we are going to meet his poor, dear mother.”
“Very well, Mrs. Clutterbuck, have it your own way,” replied the colonel, who was beaming with pride in the possession of so handsome a wife.