"No, like Esther--seeking favour of her king. I would not be too proud to run after you--" She broke off, with a hysterical laugh, as she realised the nature of her proposal. "Ah, my darling, that would be very sweet," said he, drowning her once more in ineffable caresses, "but to be married to-morrow will be sweeter still. No, we won't wait--I _can't_--unless there is an absolute necessity for it. That game would certainly not be worth the candle. What is the world to me if I have got you? I said we would be married to-morrow; I told Mrs. Duff-Scott so, and got her consent--not without some difficulty, I must own--before Mr. Brion opened his budget. I would not hear what he had to say--little thinking what it was I was going to hear!--until I had announced my intentions and the date of our wedding. Think of my cheek! Conceive of such unparalleled impudence! But now that everything is square between us, that date shall be kept--it shall be faithfully kept. Come, then, I must take you away. Have you done your packing? Mrs. Duff-Scott says we are to bring that portmanteau with us, that she may see for herself if you have furnished it properly. And you are not to come back here--you are not to come to me to the Exhibition to-morrow. She was terribly scandalised at that item in our programme." "In yours," said Elizabeth, ungenerously. "In mine. I accept it cheerfully. So she is going to take charge of you from this hour until you are Mrs. Yelverton, and in my sole care for the rest of your life--or mine. Poor woman, she is greatly cut up by the loss of that grand wedding that she would have had if we had let her." "I am sure she must be cut up," said Elizabeth, whose face was suffused with blushes, and whose eyes looked troubled. "She must be shocked and vexed at such--such precipitancy. It really does not seem decorous," she confessed, with tardy scrupulousness; "do you think it does?" "Oh, yes, I think it is quite decorous. It may not be conventional, but that is quite another thing." "It is like a clandestine marriage--almost like an elopement. It _must_ vex her to see me acting so--so--" "So what? No, I don't think it does. She _was_ a little vexed at first, but she has got over it. In her heart of hearts I believe she would be disappointed now if we didn't do it. She likes a little bit of innocent unconventionalism as well as anybody, and the romance of the whole thing has taken hold of her. Besides," added Mr. Yelverton, "you know she intended us for each other, sooner or later." "You have said as much before, but _I_ don't know anything about it," laughed Elizabeth. "Yes, she told me I might have you--weeks ago." "She was very generous."