ey forgave her or not; but he
had already perceived that women are full of inconsistencies. He had
believed her capable of marrying him out of bravado, but the pleasure of
defiance was absent if the marriage was kept to themselves. Now, too, it
appeared that she was not especially anxious to defy,--she was disposed
rather to manage, to cultivate opportunities and reap the fruits of a
waiting game.

"Leave it to me. Leave it to me. You are only a blundering man,"
Georgina said. "I shall know much better than you the right moment for
saying, 'Well, you may as well make the best of it, because we have
already done it!'"

That might very well be, but Benyon did n't quite understand, and he was
awkwardly anxious (for a lover) till it came over him afresh that
there was one thing at any rate in his favor, which was simply that
the loveliest girl he had ever seen was ready to throw herself into his
arms. When he said to her, "There is one thing I hate in this plan of
yours,--that, for ever so few weeks, so few days, your father should
support my wife,"--when he made this homely remark, with a little flush
of sincerity in his face, she gave him a specimen of that unanswerable
laugh of hers, and declared that it would serve Mr. Gressie right for
being so barbarous and so horrid. It was Benyon's view that from the
moment she disobeyed her father, she ought to cease to avail herself
of his protection; but I am bound to add that he was not particularly
surprised at finding this a kind of honor in which her feminine
nature was little versed. To make her his wife first--at the earliest
moment--whenever she would, and trust to fortune, and the new influence
he should have, to give him, as soon thereafter as possible, complete
possession of her,--this rather promptly presented itself to the young
man as the course most worthy of a person of spirit. He would be only
a pedant who would take nothing because he could not get everything at
once. They wandered further than usual this afternoon, and the dusk was
thick by the time he brought her back to her father's door. It was not
his habit to como so near it, but to-day they had so much to talk about
that he actually stood with her for ten minutes at the foot of the
steps. He was keeping her hand in his, and she let it rest there while
she said,--by way of a remark that should sum up all their reasons and
reconcile their differences,--

"There's one great thing it will do, you know; it w