"My darling," said I, "surely if there should be a clergyman on board, you will not object to his marrying us? It would end all our troubles, anxieties, misgivings—thrust Lady Amelia out of the question altogether, save us from a tedious spell of waiting ashore."
"But the objections which hold good on shore hold good here," said she, with her face averted.
"No, I can't see it," said I, talking so noisily out of the enthusiasm the notion had raised in me that she looked round to say "Hush!" and then turned her head again. "There must be a difference," said I, sobering my voice, "between the marriage ceremony as performed on sea and on shore. The burial service is different, and you will find the other is so too. There is too much horizon at sea, too much distance to talk of consent. Guardians and patents are too far off. As to banns—who's going to say 'no' on board a vessel?"
"I cannot imagine that it would be a proper wedding," said she, shaking her head.
"Do you mean in the sense of its being valid, my sweet?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"But you don't see that a parson's a parson everywhere. Whom God hath joined—"
The steward entered the saloon at that moment. I called to him and said politely, "Have you many passengers, steward?"
"Ay, sir, too many," he answered. "The steerage is pretty nigh chock-ablock."
"Saloon passengers, I mean?"