The pale young man moved a little in his chair, and the girl laid her hand caressingly upon his blue-veined one. She was seated close to him––in fact, Anita was never willing, in these later days, to be so far from Ramon that she could not reach out and touch him, as if to assure herself that he was there, that he was safe from the enemies who had encompassed them both, and that her ministering care might shield him.
Doctor Franklin noted the movement, slight as it was, and cleared his throat, importantly.
“Of course, my dear children,” he began, impressively, “if it is your earnest desire, I will perform the marriage ceremony for you here in this room at noon to-morrow. But I trust you have both given the matter careful thought––not, of course, as to the suitability of your union, but the––I may say, the manner of it! A ceremony without a social function, without the customary observances which, although worldly and filled with pomp and vanity, nevertheless are befitted by usage, in these mundane days, to those of your station in life, seems slightly unconventional, almost––er––unseemly.”
“But we don’t care for the pomp and vanity, and the social observances, and all the rest of it, do we, Ramon?” the girl asked.
Ramon Hamilton smiled, and his eyes met and held hers.
“We only want each other,” he said quietly.
“But it seems so very precipitate!” the clergyman urged, turning as if for moral support to the impassive figure of Henry Blaine. “So soon after the shadow of tragedy has crossed this threshold! What will people say?”
A little vagrant breeze, like a lost, unseasonable butterfly, 310 came in at the open window and stirred the filmy curtain, bearing on its soft breath the odor of narcissus from the bloom-laden window-box.
“Oh, Doctor Franklin!” cried the girl, impulsively. “Don’t talk of tragedy just now! Spring is so near, and we love each other so! If he––my dear, dead father––can hear, he will understand, and wish it to be so!”