itement, her cheeks burning.

"Can we? What's to prevent? Will you do it, Grace--will you?" cried he.

"What will everybody say?"

"Let 'em say. What do we care? Won't it be the greatest lark that ever
happened? You're the smartest woman in the world for thinking of it."

"But I wasn't in earnest," she protested.

"But you are now--we both are. Listen: We can slip away and get married
and nobody will be the wiser and then, when we come back, we can laugh
at everybody."

"And get our pictures in the papers."

"Then, by Hokey! we won't come back for five years! How's that? That'll
fool 'em, won't it? Say, this is great! Life is worth living after all.
You'll go, won't you, Grace?"

"I'd go to the end of the world with you, Hugh, but--"

"Oh, say you'll go! Now, listen to this," he urged, leaping to his feet.
"We're going to be married anyway. We love one another. You can't be
married until the twenty-third of May. Lots of people elope--even in the
best of families. Why shouldn't we? If we stay here, we'll have to face
all the sort of thing we don't like--"

"Yes, but it won't take us two months to elope," she protested. "Sh!
Don't speak above a whisper. Aunt Elizabeth has wonderful ears."

"By Jove, darling, I believe you're two-thirds willing to try it on," he
whispered.

"We must be sensible, Hugh. You see, I can't be married until the
twenty-third of May. Well, aunt is determined to announce the engagement
to-morrow night. Don't you see we couldn't elope until the twenty-second
at best, so we're doomed for two months of it in spite of ourselves. If
we get through the two months why should we elope at all? The worst
will be over?"

"We can't escape the announcement party, I'll admit, but we can get
away from all the rest. My scheme is to elope to a place that will
require seven or eight weeks' time to reach. That's a fine way to kill
time, don't you see?"

"My goodness!"

"Why not? We can do as we like, can't we? And what a bully lark! I'd be
a downright cad to ask you to do this, Grace, if I didn't love you as I
do. We can use assumed names and all that!"

"Oh, dear, dear, doesn't it sound lovely?" she cried, her cheeks red
with excitement.

"The twenty-third of May isn't so far off after all, and it won't be
half so far if we're doing something like this. Will you go?"

"If I only could! Do you really think we--we could?"

"Whoop!" he shouted, as he seized her in his arms and rained kisses upon