“Now then, Dicky, my boy,” laughed Bruce. “This is where chappies go down on their knees and put their hands on their hearts.”
“Oh, shut up,” said Richard. He had become very serious as he turned to Marie Lou. “Look here. I know all this seems like the Mad Hatter’s tea-party, but there’s something in what this idiot says. Under English law a wife takes her husband’s nationality. The Embassy is English soil — if we were married there, tomorrow you could be put on my passport, then there would be no difficulty about returning to Russia, and as my wife the police would never connect you with the girl at Romanovsk. I will admit, too, that there is very little I can do in Kiev without someone who I can trust that speaks Russian. Of course, I’d take all the necessary steps to give you your freedom directly we got back again.”
She regarded him gravely for a moment — then she nodded, slowly. “Yes, I am sure I can trust you to do that. I know, also, that I shall be a help to you in Kiev. Let us then get married tomorrow.”
And so it was arranged — the following morning there was a marriage at the British Embassy. Immediately afterwards Bruce took the joint passport of the newly married pair to the Soviet Legation and pressed for speedy visa. In the afternoon, on Richard’s advice, Marie Lou visited the astonished Chaplain to the Embassy who had married them in the morning, and declared vehemently, that she would never live with her husband, she had already discovered terrible things about him which she refused to disclose. In addition Richard moved to a different hotel. It was his idea that these precautions would materially assist them in securing an early annulment of their marriage on their return from Russia. Nevertheless, he dined with Marie Lou that night at one of the smaller restaurants, and thought it one of the most delightful evenings he had ever spent.
The following day he took his official wife shopping, having obtained fresh supplies of cash through Bruce, and never in his life had he experienced so much pleasure as in Marie Lou’s delight at the lovely things he insisted on buying for her from the Vienna shops.
That night he took her to a musical show. In her new evening dress she was radiantly lovely — tiny but perfect — a real princess.
Many people turned to look at her and wonder who she was, but she had no eyes for anyone but Richard, that by no means silent Englishman, with his merry laugh, and his anxious, thoughtful care for her. Nobody who saw them doubted for a minute that they were lovers.
On the third day a reply was received from the authorities at Kiev — Moscow had been consulted; an American called Van Ryn had arrived in that city on December 4th, and left on the 11th for an unknown destination. Mr. Simon Aron had arrived there on February 6th, he, also, had disappeared. Of the Duke de Richleau they had no knowledge. The suggestion that these three persons were being held prisoners in Kiev was quite unfounded.
“There you are, my dear old bird,” said Bruce, as he showed the reply to Richard. “Just what I expected. Now, if you can prove that those chappies are in Kiev, we’ll create diplomatic hell, but more we can’t do.”
That afternoon Richard took Marie Lou out to Schoenbrunn; they walked in the gardens of the palace, rejoicing in the fresh green of the early spring. In the evening he took her to another show and afterwards to a cabaret — they had recovered completely from the fatigue of the long journey and did not go to their respective hotels until the early hours of the morning. Somehow, the more they saw of each other the more they had to say. There was an infinite variety of incidents in their past lives that they had to tell each other. Then there were all their plans and hopes for the future, into which, of course, the question of marriage — at least for some years, and even then only to some person vaguely reminiscent of each other — did not enter.