“What a tragic little voice!  You really are done up.  I couldn’t help dropping in for a minute; but of course if you say so I’ll be off.”  She was removing her long gloves and he took her hands and drew her close.  “Only take off your veil, and let me see you.”

A quiver of resistance ran through her:  he felt it and dropped her hands.

“Please don’t tease.  I never could bear it,” she stammered, drawing away.

“Till to-morrow, then; that is, if the dress-makers permit.”

She forced a laugh.  “If I showed myself now you might not come back to-morrow.  I look perfectly hideous—­it was so hot and they kept me so long.”

“All to make yourself more beautiful for a man who’s blind with your beauty already?”

The words made her smile, and moving nearer she bent her head and stood still while he undid her veil.  As he put it back their lips met, and his look of passionate tenderness was incense to her.

But the next moment his expression passed from worship to concern.  “Dear!  Why, what’s the matter?  You’ve been crying!”

She put both hands to her hat in the instinctive effort to hide her face.  His persistence was as irritating as her mother’s.

“I told you it was frightfully hot—­and all my things were horrid; and it made me so cross and nervous!” She turned to the looking-glass with a feint of smoothing her hair.

Marvell laid his hand on her arm, “I can’t bear to see you so done up.  Why can’t we be married to-morrow, and escape all these ridiculous preparations?  I shall hate your fine clothes if they’re going to make you so miserable.”

She dropped her hands, and swept about on him, her face lit up by a new idea.  He was extraordinarily handsome and appealing, and her heart began to beat faster.

“I hate it all too!  I wish we could be married right away!”

Marvell caught her to him joyously.  “Dearest—­dearest!  Don’t, if you don’t mean it!  The thought’s too glorious!”

Undine lingered in his arms, not with any intent of tenderness, but as if too deeply lost in a new train of thought to be conscious of his hold.

“I suppose most of the things could be got ready sooner—­if I said they must,” she brooded, with a fixed gaze that travelled past him.  “And the rest—­why shouldn’t the rest be sent over to Europe after us?  I want to go straight off with you, away from everything—­ever so far away, where there’ll be nobody but you and me alone!” She had a flash of illumination which made her turn her lips to his.

“Oh, my darling—­my darling!” Marvell whispered.

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