"To-night?"
"How can we see each other to-night!"
"Cary is going to New York – "
Voices approaching through the hall warned him:
"All right, to-night," he said, desperately. "Go out into the hall."
"To-night, Jim?"
"Yes."
She turned and walked out into the hall. He heard her voice calmly joining in the chatter now approaching, and, without any reason, he walked to the window. And found Mrs. Hammerton there.
Astonishment and anger left him dumb and scarlet to the roots of his hair.
"It isn't my fault," she hissed. "You and that other fool had already committed yourselves before I could stir to warn you. What do I care for your vile little intrigues, anyway! I don't have to listen behind curtains to learn what anybody could have seen at the Metropolitan Opera – "
"You are absolutely mistaken – "
"No doubt, James. But whether I am or not makes absolutely no difference to me – or to Jacqueline Nevers – "
"What do you mean by that?"
"What I say, exactly. It will make no difference to Jacqueline, because you are going to keep your distance."
"Do you think so?"
"If you don't keep away from her I'll tell her a few things. Listen to me very carefully, James. You think I'm fond of you, don't you? Well, I am. But I've taken a fancy to Jacqueline Nevers that – well, if I were not childless I might feel it less deeply. I've put my arms around her once and for all. Now do you understand?"
"I tell you," he said steadily, "you are mistaken in believing – "
"Very well. Granted. What of it? One dirty little intrigue more or less doesn't alter what you are and have been. The plain point of the matter is this, James: you are not fit to aspire seriously to Jacqueline Nevers. Are you? I ask you, now, honestly; are you?"
"Does that concern you?"
She fairly snapped her teeth and her eyes sparkled:
"Yes; it concerns me! Keep away! I warn you – you and the rest of the Jacks and Reggies and similar assorted pups. Your hunting ground is elsewhere."
A sort of cold fury possessed him: "You had better not say anything to Miss Nevers about what you overheard in this room," he said in a colourless voice.
"I'll use my own judgment," she retorted tartly.
"Use mine. It is perhaps better. Don't interfere."
"Don't be a fool, James."
"Will you listen to me – "
"About Elena Clydesdale?" she asked maliciously.
"There is nothing to tell about her."
"Naturally. I never heard the Desboros were blackguards – only a trifle airy, James – a trifle gallant! Dear child, don't anger me. You know it wouldn't be well for you."
"I ask you merely to mind your business."
"That I shall do. My life's business is Jacqueline. You yourself made her so – " Malice indescribable snapped in her tiny black eyes, and she laughed harshly. "You made that motherless girl my business. Ask yourself if you've ever, inadvertently, done as decent a thing?"
"Do you understand that I wish to marry her?" he asked, white with passion.
"You! What do I care what your patronising intentions may be? And, James, if you drive me to it – " she fairly glared at him, " – I'll destroy even your acquaintanceship with her. And I possess the means to do it!"
"Try it!" he motioned with dry lips.
A moment later the animated chatter of young people filled the room, and among them sounded Jacqueline's voice.
"Oh!" she said, laughing, when she saw Mrs. Hammerton and Desboro coming from the embrasure of the window. "Have you been flirting again, Aunt Hannah!"
"Yes," said the old lady grimly, "and I think I've taken him into camp."
"Then it's my turn," said Jacqueline. "Come on, Mr. Desboro, you can't escape me. I'm going to beat you a game of rabbit!"
Everybody drifted into the billiard-room at their heels, and found them already at their stations on either side of the pool table, each one covering the side pocket with left hand spread wide. Jacqueline had the cue-ball; it lay on the cloth in front of her, and her slim right hand covered it.
"Ready?" she asked of Desboro.
"Ready," he said, watching her.
She made a feint; he sprang to the left; she shot the ball toward the right corner pocket, missed, carromed, and tried to recover it; but Desboro's arm shot out across the cloth and he seized it and shot it at her left corner pocket. It went in with a plunk!
"One for Jim!" said Reggie gravely, and, picking up a cue, scored with a button overhead.
"Plunk!" went the ball again into the same pocket; and Jacqueline gave a little cry of dismay as Desboro leaned far over the table, threatening, feinting, moving the ball so fast she could scarcely follow his hand. Then she thought she saw the crisis coming, sprang toward the left corner pocket, gave a cry of terror, and plunk! went the ball into her side pocket.
Flushed, golden hair in pretty disorder, she sprang back on guard again, and the onlookers watched the movement of her hands, fascinated by their grace and beauty as she defended her side of the table and, finally, snatched the ball from the very jaws of the right corner.
It was a breathless, exciting game, even for rabbit, and was fought to a furious finish; but she went down to defeat, and Desboro came around the table to condole with her, and together they stepped aside to leave the arena free for Katharine Frere and Reggie.
"I'm so sorry, dear," he said under his breath.
"It's what I want, Jim. Never let me take the lead again – in anything."
His laugh was not genuine. He glanced across the room and saw Aunt Hannah pretending not to watch him. Near her stood Elena Clydesdale beside her husband, making no such pretence.
He said in a low voice: "Jacqueline, would you marry me as soon as I can get a license – if I asked you to do it?"
She blushed furiously; then walked over to the window and gazed out, dismayed and astounded. He followed.
"Will you, dear? I have the very best of reasons for asking you."
"Could you tell me the reasons, Jim?" she asked, still dazed.
"I had rather not – if you don't mind. Will you trust me when I say it is better for us to marry quietly and at once?"
She looked up at him dumbly, the scarlet slowly fading from brow and cheek.
"Do you trust me?" he repeated.
"Yes – I trust you."
"Will you marry me, then, as soon as I can arrange for it?"
She was silent.
"Will you?" he urged.
"Jim – darling – I wanted to be equipped – I wanted to have some pretty things, in order to – to be at my very best – for you. A girl is a bride only once in her life; a man remembers her as she came to him first."
"Dearest, as I saw you first, so I will always think of you."
"Oh, Jim! In that black gown and cuffs and collar!"
"You don't understand men, dear. No coronation robe ever could compete with that dress in my affections. You always are perfect; I never saw you when you weren't bewitching – "
"But, dear, there are other things – "
"We'll buy them together!"
"Jim, must we do it this way? I don't mean that I wished for any ostentation – "
"I did! I would have wished for a ceremony suited to your beauty and – "
"No, no! I didn't expect – "
"But I did – damn it!" he said between his teeth. "I wished it; I expected it. Don't you think I know what a girl ought to have? Indeed I do, Jacqueline. And in New York town another century will never see a bride to compare with you! But, my darling, I cannot risk it!"
"Risk it?"
"Don't ask me any more."
"No."
"And – will you do it – for my sake?"
"Yes."
There was a silence between them; he lighted a cigarette, turned coolly around, and glanced across the room. Elena instantly averted her gaze. Mrs. Hammerton sustained his pleasant inspection with an unchanging stare almost insolent.
After a moment he smiled at her. It was a mistake to do it.
After luncheon, Elena Clydesdale found an opportunity for a word with him.
"Will you remember that you have an engagement to-night?" she said in a guarded voice.
"I shall break it," he replied.
"What!"
"This is going to end here and now! Your business is with your husband. He's a decent fellow; he's devoted to you. I won't even discuss it with you. Break with him if you want to, but don't count on me!"
"I can't break with him unless I can count on you. Are you going to lie to me, Jim?"
"You can call it what you like. But if you break with him it will end our friendship."
"I tell you I've got to break with him. I've got to do it now – at once!"
"Why?"
"Because – because I've got to. I can't go on fencing with him."
"Oh!"
She crimsoned and set her little white teeth.
"I've got to leave him or be what – I won't be!"
"Then break with him," he said contemptuously, "and give a decent man another chance in life!"
"I can't – unless you – "
"Good God! I'd sooner cut my throat. My sympathy is for your husband. You're convicting yourself, I tell you! I've always had a dim idea that he was all right. Now I know it – and my obligations to you are ended."
"Then – you leave me – to him? Answer me, Jim. You refuse to stand between me and my – my degradation? Is that what you mean to do? Knowing I have no other means of escaping it except through you – except by defying the world with you!"
She broke off with a sob.
"Elena," he said, "your one salvation in this world is to have children! It will mean happiness and honour for you both – mutual respect, and, if not romantic love, at least a cordial understanding and mutual toleration. If you have such a chance, don't throw it away. Your husband is a slow, intelligent, kind, and patient man, who has borne much from you because he is honestly in love with you. Don't mistake his consideration for weakness, his patience for acquiescence. What kindness you have pretended to show him recently has given him courage. He is trying to make good because he believes that he can win you. This is clear reason; it is logic, Elena."
She turned on him in a flash of tears and exasperation.
"Logic! Do you think a woman wants that?" she stammered. "Do you think a woman arrives at any conclusion through the kind of reasoning that satisfies men? What difference does what you say make to me, when I hate him and I love you? How does your logic help me to escape what is – is abhorrent to me! Do you suppose your reasoning makes it more endurable? Oh, Jim! For heaven's sake don't leave me to that – that man! Let me come here this evening after he has gone, and try to explain to you how I – "
"No."
"You won't!"
"No. I am going to town with Mrs. Hammerton and Miss Nevers on the evening train. And some day I am going to marry Miss Nevers."
CHAPTER XII
During her week's absence from town Jacqueline's mail had accumulated; a number of business matters had come into the office, the disposal of which now awaited her decision – requests from wealthy connoisseurs for expert opinion, offers to dispose of collections entire or in part, invitations to dealers' secret conferences, urgent demands for appraisers, questions concerning origin or authenticity, commissions to buy, sell, advertise, or send searchers throughout the markets at home or abroad for anything from a tiny shrine of Limoges enamel to a complete suit of equestrian armour to fill a gap in a series belonging to some rich man's museum.
On the evening of her arrival at the office, she was beset by her clerks and salesmen, bringing to her hundreds of petty routine details requiring her personal examination. Also, it appeared that one of her clients had been outrageously swindled by a precious pair of fly-by-nights; and the matter required immediate investigation. So she was obliged to telephone to Mrs. Hammerton that she could not dine with her at the Ritz, and to Desboro that she could not see him for a day or two. In Desboro's case, a postscript added: "Except for a minute, dearest, whenever you come."
She did not even take the time to dine that evening, but settled down at her office desk as soon as the retail shop below was closed; and, with the tea urn and a rack of toast at her elbow, plunged straight into the delightfully interesting chaos confronting her.
As far as the shop was concerned, the New Year, as usual, had brought to that part of the business a lull in activity. It always happened so after New Years; and the stagnation steadily increased as spring approached, until by summer time the retail business was practically dead.
But a quiet market did not mean that there was nothing for her to do. Warehouse sales must be watched, auctions, public and private, in town and country, must be attended by one or more of her representatives; private clients inclined to sell always required tactful handling and careful consideration; her confidential agents must always be alert.
Also, always her people were continually searching for various objects ardently desired by all species of acquisitive clients; she must keep in constant touch with everything that was happening in her business abroad; she must keep abreast of her times at home, which required much cleverness, intuition, and current reading, and much study in the Museum and among private collections to which she had access. She was a very, very busy girl, almost too busy at moments to remember that she had fallen in love.
That night she worked alone in her office until long after midnight; and all the next day until noon she was busy listening to or instructing salesmen, clerks, dealers, experts, auctioneers, and clients. Also, the swindle and the swindlers were worrying her extremely.
Luncheon had been served on a tray beside her desk, and she was still absent-mindedly going over the carbon files of business letters, which she had dictated and dispatched that morning, when Desboro's card was brought to her. She sent word that she would receive him.
"Will you lunch with me, Jim?" she asked demurely, when he had appeared and shaken hands vigorously. "I've a fruit salad and some perfectly delicious sherbet! Please sit on the desk top and help me consume the banquet."
"Do you call that a banquet, darling?" he demanded. "Come out to the Ritz with me this instant – "
"Dearest! I can't! Oh, you don't know what an exciting and interesting mess my business affairs are in! A girl always has to pay for her pleasure. But in this case it's a pleasure to pay. Bring up that chair and share my luncheon like a good fellow, so we can chat together for a few minutes. It's all the time I can give you to-day, dearest."
He pulled up a chair and seated himself, experiencing somewhat mixed emotions in the presence of such bewildering business capability.
"You make me feel embarrassed and ashamed," he said. "Rotten loafer that I am! And you so energetic and industrious – you darling thing!"
"But, dear, your farmer can't plow frozen ground, you know; all your men can do just now is to mend fences and dump fertiliser and lime and gypsum over everything. And I believe they were doing that when I left."
"If," he said, "I were a real instead of a phony farmer, I'd read catalogues about wire fences; I'd find plenty to do if I were not a wretched sham. It's only, I hope, because you're in town that I can't drive myself back where I belong. I ought to be sitting in a wood-shed, in overalls, whittling sticks and yelling bucolic wisdom at Ezra Vail – Oh, you needn't laugh, darling, but that's where I ought to be, and what I ought to be doing if I'm ever going to support a wife!"
"Jim! You're not going to support a wife! You absurd boy!"
"What!" he demanded, losing countenance.
"Did you think you were obliged to support me? How ridiculous! I'd be perfectly miserable – "
"Jacqueline! What on earth do you mean? We are going to live on my income."
"Indeed we are not! What use would I be to you if I brought you nothing except an idle, useless, lazy girl to support! It's unthinkable!"
"Do you expect to remain in business?" he asked, incredulously.
"Certainly I expect it!"
"But – darling – "
"Jim! I love my business. It was father's business; it represents my childhood, my girlhood, my maturity. Every detail of it is inextricably linked with memories of him – the dearest memories, the tenderest associations of my life! Do you wish me to give them up?"
"How can you be my wife, Jacqueline, and still remain a business woman?"
"Dear, I am certainly going to marry you. Permit me to arrange the rest. It will not interfere with my being your devoted and happy wife. It wouldn't ever interfere with – with my being a – a perfectly good mother – if that's what you fear. If it did, do you suppose I'd hesitate to choose?"
"No," he said, adoring her.
"Indeed, I wouldn't! But remaining in business will give me what every girl should have as a right – an object in life apart from her love for her husband – and children – apart from her proper domestic duties. It is her right to engage in the business of life; it makes the contract between you and me fairer. I love you more than anything in the world, but I simply couldn't keep my self-respect and depend on you for everything I have."
"But, my darling, everything I have is already yours."
"Yes, I know. We can pretend it is. I know I could have it – just as you could have this rather complicated business of mine – if you want it."
"Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed. "Imagine the fury of a connoisseur who engaged me to identify his priceless penates!"
He was laughing, too, now. They had finished their fruit salad and sherbet; she lighted a cigarette for him, taking a dainty puff and handing it to him with an adorable shudder.
"I don't like it! I don't like any vices! How women can enjoy what men enjoy is a mystery to me. Smoke slowly, darling, because when that cigarette is finished you must make a very graceful bow and say good-bye to me until to-morrow."
"This is simply devilish, Jacqueline! I never see you any more."
"Nonsense! You have plenty to do to amuse you – haven't you, dear?"
But the things that once occupied his leisure so casually and so agreeably no longer attracted him.
"I don't want to read seed catalogues," he protested. "Couldn't I be of use to you, Jacqueline? I'll do anything you say – take off my coat and sweep out your office, or go behind the counter in the shop and sell gilded gods – "
"Imagine the elegant Mr. Desboro selling antiquities to the dangerous monomaniacs who haunt such shops as mine! Dear, they'd either drive you crazy or have you arrested for fraud inside of ten minutes. No; you will make a perfectly good husband, Jim, but you were never created to decorate an antique shop."
He tried to smile, but only flushed rather painfully. A sudden and wholly inexplicable sense of inferiority possessed him.
"You know," he said, "I'm not going to stand around idle while you run a prosperous business concern. And anyway, I can't see it, Jacqueline. You and I are going to have a lot of social obligations to – "
"We are likely to have all kinds of obligations," she interrupted serenely, "and our lives are certain to be very full, and you and I are going to be equal to every opportunity, every demand, every responsibility – and still have leisure to love each other, and to be to each other everything that either could desire."
"After all," he said, serious and unconvinced, "there are only twenty-four hours in a day for us to be together."
"Yes, darling, but there will be no wasted time in those twenty-four hours. That is where we save a sufficient number of minutes to attend to the business of life."
"Do you mean that you intend to come into this office every day?"
"For a while, yes. Less frequently when I have trained my people a little longer. What do you suppose my father was doing all his life? What do you suppose I have been doing these last three years? Why, Jim, except that hitherto I have loved to fuss over details, this office and this business could almost run itself for six months at a time. Some day, except for special clients here and there, Lionel Sissly will do what expert work I now am doing; and this desk will be his; and his present position will be filled by Mr. Mirk. That is how it is planned. And if you had given me two or three months, I might have been able to go on a bridal trip with you!"
"We are going, aren't we?" he asked, appalled.
"If I've got to marry you offhand," she said seriously, "our wedding trip will have to wait. Don't you know, dear, that it always costs heavily to do anything in a hurry? At this time of year, and under the present conditions of business, and considering my contracts and obligations, it would be utterly impossible for me to go away again until summer."
He sprang up irritated, yet feeling utterly helpless under her friendly but level gaze. Already he began to realise the true significance of her position and his own in the world; how utterly at a moral disadvantage he stood before this young girl – moral, intellectual, spiritual – he was beginning to comprehend it all now.
A dull flush of anger made his face hot and altered his expression to sullenness. Where was all this leading them, anyway – this reversal of rôles, this self-dependent attitude of hers – this calm self-reliance – this freedom of decision?
Once he had supposed there was something in her to protect, to guide, advise, make allowance for – perhaps to persuade, possibly, even, to instruct. Such has been the immemorial attitude of man; it had been instinctively, and more or less unconsciously, his.
And now, in spite of her youth, her soft pliability, her almost childish grace and beauty, he was experiencing a half-dazed sensation as though, in full and confident career, he had come, slap! into collision with an occult barrier. And the impact was confusing him and even beginning to hurt him.
He looked around him uneasily. Everything in the office, somehow, seemed to be in subtle league with her to irritate him – her desk, her loaded letter-files, her stacks of ledgers – all these accused and offended him. But most of all his own helpless inferiority made him angry and ashamed – the inferiority of idleness confronted by industry; of aimlessness face to face with purpose; of irresolution and degeneracy scrutinised by fearlessness, confidence, and happy and innocent aspiration. And the combination silenced him.
And every mute second that he stood there, he felt as though something imperceptible, intangible, was slipping away from him – perhaps his man's immemorial right to lead, to decide, to direct the common destiny of this slim, sweet-lipped young girl and himself.
For it was she who was serenely deciding – who had already laid out the business of life for herself without hesitation, without resort to him, to his man's wisdom, experience, prejudices, wishes, desires. Moreover, she was leaving him absolutely free to decide his own business in life for himself; and that made her position unassailable. For if she had presumed to advise him, to suggest, even hint at anything interfering with his own personal liberty to decide for himself, he might have found some foothold, some niche, something to sustain him, to justify him, in assuming man's immemorial right to leadership.
"Dear," she said wistfully, "you look at me with such very troubled eyes. Is there anything I have said that you disapprove?"
"I had not expected you to remain in business," was all he found to say.
"If my remaining in business ever interferes with your happiness or with my duty to you, I will give it up. You know that, don't you?"
He reddened again.
"It looks queer," he muttered, " – your being in business and I – playing farmer – like one of those loafing husbands of celebrated actresses."
"Jim!" she exclaimed, scarlet to the ears. "What a horrid simile!"
"It's myself I'm cursing out," he said, almost angrily. "I can't cut such a figure. Don't you understand, Jacqueline? I haven't anything to occupy me! Do you expect me to hang around somewhere while you work? I tell you, I've got to find something to do as soon as we're married – or I couldn't look you in the face."
"That is for you to decide. Isn't it?" she asked sweetly.
"Yes, but on what am I to decide?"
"Whatever you decide, don't do it in a hurry, dear," she said, smiling.
The sullen sense of resentment returned, reddening his face again:
"I wouldn't have to hurry if you'd give up this business and live on our income and be free to travel and knock about with me – "
"Can't you understand that I will be free to be with you – free in mind, in conscience, in body, to travel with you, be with you, be to you whatever you desire – but only if I keep my self-respect! And I can't keep that if I neglect the business of life, which, in my case, lies partly here in this office."
She rose and laid one slim, pretty hand on his shoulder. She rarely permitted herself to touch him voluntarily.
"Don't you wish me to be happy?" she asked gently.
"It's all I wish in the world, Jacqueline."
"But I couldn't be happy and remain idle; remain dependent on you for anything – except love. Life to the full – every moment filled – that is what living means to me. And only one single thing never can fill one's life – not intellectual research alone; not spiritual remoteness; nor yet the pursuit of pleasure; nor the swift and endless hunt for happiness; nor even love, dearest among men! Only the business of life can quite fill life to the brimming for me; and that business is made up of everything worthy – of the pleasures of effort, duty, aspiration, and noble repose, but never of the pleasures of idleness. Jim, have I bored you with a sermon? Forgive me; I am preaching only to instruct myself."
He took her hand from his shoulder and stood holding it and looking at her with a strange expression. So dazed, yet so terribly intent he seemed at moments that she laid her other hand over his, pressing it in smiling anxiety.
"What is it, dearest?" she murmured. "Don't you approve of me as much as you thought you did? Am I disappointing you already?"
"Good God!" he muttered to himself. "If there is a heaven, and your sort inhabit it, hell was reformed long ago."
"What are you muttering all to yourself, Jim?" she insisted. "What troubles you?"
"I'll tell you. You've picked the wrong man. I'm absolutely unfit for you. I know about all those decent things you believe in – all the things you are! But I don't know about them from personal experience; I never did anything decent because it was my duty to do it – except by accident. I never took a spiritual interest in anything or anybody, including myself! I never made a worthy effort; I never earned one second's worth of noble repose. And now – if there's anything in me to begin on – it's probably my duty to release you until I have made something of myself, before I come whining around asking you to marry a man not fit to marry – "
"My darling!" she protested, half laughing, half in tears, and closing his angry lips with both her hands. "I want you, not a saint or a holy man, or an archangel fresh from paradise! I want you as you are– as you have been – as you are going to be dear! Did any girl who ever lived find pleasure in perfection? Even in art it is undesirable. That's the beauty of aspiration; the pleasures of effort never pall. I don't know whether I'm laughing or crying, Jim! You look so solemn and miserable, and – and funny! But if you try to look dignified now, I'll certainly laugh! You dear, blessed, overgrown boy – just as bad as you possibly can be! Just as funny and unreasonable and perverse as are all boys! But Jacqueline loves you dearly – oh, dearly – and she trusts you with her heart and her happiness and with every beauty yet undreamed and unrevealed that a girl could learn to desire on earth! Are you contented? Oh, Jim! Jim! If you knew how I adore you! You must go, dear. It will mean a long night's work for me if you don't. But it's so hard to let you go – when I – love you so! When I love you so! Good-bye. Yes, to-morrow. Don't call at noon; Mrs. Hammerton is coming for a five-minute chat. And I do want you to myself for the few moments we may have together. Come about five and we can have tea here beside my desk."
He came next day at five. The day after that he arrived at the same hour, bringing with him her ring; and, as he slipped it over her finger, for the first time her self-control slipped, too, and she bent swiftly and kissed the jewel that he was holding.
Then, flushed and abashed, she shrank away, an exquisite picture of confusion, and stood turning and turning the ring around, her head obstinately lowered, absolutely unresponsive again to his arm around her and his cheek resting close against hers.
"What a beauty of a ring, Jim!" she managed to say at last. "No other engagement ring ever existed half as lovely and splendid as my betrothal ring. I am sorry for all the empresses and queens and princesses who can never hope to possess a ring to equal the ring of Jacqueline Nevers, dealer in antiquities."
"Nor can they hope to possess such a hand to adorn it," he said, " – the most beautiful, the purest, whitest, softest, most innocent hand in the world! The magic hand of Jacqueline!"
"Do you like it?" she asked, shyly conscious of its beauty.
"It is matchless, darling. Let empresses shriek with envy."
"I'm listening very intently, but I don't hear them. Jim. Also, I've seen a shop-girl with far lovelier hands. But please go on thinking so and hearing crowned heads shriek. I rather like your imagination."
He laughed from sheer happiness:
"I've got something to whisper to you. Shall I?"
"What?"
"Shall I whisper it?"
She inclined her small head daintily, then:
"Oh!" she exclaimed, startled and blushing to the tips of her ears.
"Will you be ready?"
"I – yes. Yes – I'll be ready – "
"Does it make you happy?"
"I can't realise – I didn't know it was to be so soon – so immediate – "
"We'll go to Silverwood. We can catch the evening express – "
"Dearest!"
"You can go away with me for one week, can't you?"
"I can't go now!" she faltered.
"For how long can you go, Jacqueline?"
"I – I've got to be back on Tuesday morning."
"Tuesday!"
"Isn't it dreadful, Jim. But I can't avoid it if we are to be married on Monday next. I must deal honourably by my clients who trust me. I warned you that our wedding trip would have to be postponed if you married me this way – didn't I, dear?"