Quick Action Part 39

His hands fell from his face and he sat up.

"Could _you_?"

"What?" she said, not understanding.

"Could you do what--what I--mentioned just now?"

She looked curiously at him for a moment, not comprehending. Suddenly a rose flush stained her face.

"I don't think you mean to say that to me," she said quietly.

"Yes," he said, "I do mean to say it.... Because, since I first saw you, I have--have dared to--to be in love with you."

"With _me_! We--you have not known me an hour!"

"I have known you three days."

"What?"

"_I_ am George Z. Green!"

XXV

Minute after minute throbbed in silence, timed by the loud rhythm of the roaring wheels. He did not dare lift his head to look at her, though her stillness scared him. Awful and grotesque thoughts a.s.sailed him. He wondered whether she had survived the blow--and like an a.s.sa.s.sin he dared not look to see what he had done, but crouched there, overwhelmed with misery such as he never dreamed that a human heart could endure.

A century seemed to have pa.s.sed before, far ahead, the locomotive whistled warningly for the Ormond station.

He understood what it meant, and clutched his temples, striving to gather courage sufficient to lift his head and face her blazing contempt--or her insensible and inanimate but beautiful young form lying in a merciful faint on the floor of the baggage car.

And at last he lifted his head.

She had risen and was standing by the locked side doors, touching her eye-lashes with her handkerchief.

When he rose, the train was slowing down. Presently the baggage master came in, yawning; the side doors were unbolted and flung back as the car glided along a high, wooden platform.

They were standing side by side now; she did not look at him, but when the car stopped she laid her hand lightly on his arm.

Trembling in every fibre, he drew the little, gloved hand through his arm and aided her to descend.

"Are you unhappy?" he whispered tremulously.

"No.... What are we to do?"

"Am I to say?"

"Yes," she said faintly.

"Shall I register as your brother?"

She blushed and looked at him in a lovely and distressed way.

"What _are_ we to do?" she faltered.

They entered the main hall of the great hotel at that moment, and she turned to look around her.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, clutching his arm. "Do you see that man? Do you _see_ him?"

"Which man--dearest?----"

"_That_ one over there! That is the clergyman I saw in the crystal. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Is it going to come true right away?"

"I think it is," he said. "Are you afraid?"

She drew a deep, shuddering breath, lifted her eyes to his:

"N-no," she said.

Ten minutes later it was being done around the corner of the great veranda, where n.o.body was. The moon glimmered on the Halifax; the palmettos sighed in the chilly sea-wind; the still, night air was scented with orange bloom and the odour of the sea.

He wore his overcoat, and he used the plain, gold band which had decorated his little finger. The clergyman was brief and businesslike; the two clerks made dignified witnesses.

When it was done, and they were left alone, standing on the moonlit veranda, he said:

"Shall we send a present to the Princess Zimbamzim?"

"Yes.... A beautiful one."

He drew her to him; she laid both hands on his shoulders. When he kissed her, her face was cold and white as marble.

"Are you afraid?" he whispered.

The marble flushed pink.

"No," she said.

"That," said Stafford, "was certainly quick action. Ten minutes is a pretty short time for Fate to begin business."

"Fate," remarked Duane, "once got busy with me inside of ten seconds."

He looked at Athalie.

"_Ut solent poetae_," she rejoined, calmly.