s not to him that she spoke.
"Hugh, I positively have to have some clothes."

"Clothes!" His voice expressed his contempt for the mundane thought.

"Yes, clothes," she repeated resolutely.

He looked at his watch once more.

"Very well," he said, "we'll get 'em on the way."

"On the way?" she asked.

"We'll have to have a marriage license, I'm afraid," he explained
apologetically.

Honora grew crimson. A marriage license!

She yielded, of course. Who could resist him? Nor need the details of
that interminable journey down the crowded artery of Broadway to the
Centre of Things be entered into. An ignoble errand, Honora thought; and
she sat very still, with flushed cheeks, in the corner of the carriage.
Chiltern's finer feelings came to her rescue. He, too, resented this
senseless demand of civilization as an indignity to their Olympian loves.
And he was a man to chafe at all restraints. But at last the odious thing
was over, grim and implacable Law satisfied after he had compelled them
to stand in line for an interminable period before his grill, and mingle
with those whom he chose, in his ignorance, to call their peers. Honora
felt degraded as they emerged with the hateful paper, bought at such a
price. The City Hall Park, with its moving streams of people, etched
itself in her memory.

"Leave me, Hugh," she said; "I will take this carriage--you must get
another one."

For once, he accepted his dismissal with comparative meekness.

"When shall I come?" he asked.

"She smiled a little, in spite of herself.

"You may come for me at six o'clock," she replied.

"Six o'clock!" he exclaimed; but accepted with resignation and closed the
carriage door. Enigmatical sex!

Enigmatical sex indeed! Honora spent a feverish afternoon, rest and
reflection being things she feared. An afternoon in familiar places; and
(strangest of all facts to be recorded!) memories and regrets troubled
her not at all. Her old dressmakers, her old milliners, welcomed her as
one risen, radiant, from the grave; risen, in their estimation, to a
higher life. Honora knew this, and was indifferent to the wealth of
meaning that lay behind their discretion. Milliners and dressmakers read
the newspapers and periodicals--certain periodicals. Well they knew that
the lady they flattered was the future Mrs. Hugh Chiltern.

Nothing whatever of an indelicate nature happened. There was no mention
of where to send the bill, or of whom to send it to.