He looked at his watch once more.
“Very well,” he said, “we'll get 'em on the way.”
“On the way?” she asked.
“We'll have to have a marriage license, I'm afraid,” he explained apologetically.
Honora grew crimson. A marriage license!
She yielded, of course. Who could resist him? Nor need the details of that interminable journey down the crowded artery of Broadway to the Centre of Things be entered into. An ignoble errand, Honora thought; and she sat very still, with flushed cheeks, in the corner of the carriage. Chiltern's finer feelings came to her rescue. He, too, resented this senseless demand of civilization as an indignity to their Olympian loves. And he was a man to chafe at all restraints. But at last the odious thing was over, grim and implacable Law satisfied after he had compelled them to stand in line for an interminable period before his grill, and mingle with those whom he chose, in his ignorance, to call their peers. Honora felt degraded as they emerged with the hateful paper, bought at such a price. The City Hall Park, with its moving streams of people, etched itself in her memory.
“Leave me, Hugh,” she said; “I will take this carriage—you must get another one.”
For once, he accepted his dismissal with comparative meekness.
“When shall I come?” he asked.
“She smiled a little, in spite of herself.