The girl clasped her hands together with force.

“Sure!  I should think so—­He wears glasses, and has nasty, scrabbly bits of fur on his face, which he thinks is a beard, and he is pompous and he talks like this,” and she imitated a precise Boston voice. “’My dear Sabine—­have you considered,’ and he is lanky—­and Oh!  I detest him, and I can’t imagine why I ever said I would marry him—­but if I don’t, what am I to do with Aunt Jemima for four years!  I should die of it.”

Michael sat on the edge of the table and looked at her long and deeply.  He took in the childish picture she made in the big chair.  He had no definite appreciation then of her charm, his mind was too fixed upon what seemed a prospect of certain escape from Violet Hatfield and her cunning thirty years of experience.  This young thing could not interfere with him, and divorces in Scotland were not impossible things—­they would both gain what they wanted for the time, and it was a fair bargain.  So he said, after a moment: 

“I will go up to London to-morrow, and if it is as you say that you are free to marry whom and when you will, I will try to get this old lawyer’s consent and a special license—­But how about your Uncle?  Has he not any legal right over you?”

Miss Delburg laughed contentedly.

“Not in the least—­only that I have to live with him until I am married.  Mr. Parsons—­that’s the lawyer’s name—­hates him, and he hates Mr. Parsons.  So I know Mr. Parsons will be delighted to spite him by giving his consent, if you just say Uncle Mortimer is trying to force me into a marriage against my will with his nephew—­Samuel Greenbank is his nephew, you know—­no relation to me.  It is Aunt Jemima who is Papa’s sister.”

All this seemed quite convincing.  Michael felt relieved.

“I see,” he said.  “Well, it appears simple enough.  I believe I could be back by Thursday, and I could have my chaplain and a friend of mine, and we could get the affair over in the chapel—­and then you can go back to the Inn with your certificate—­and I can go to Paris—­free!” And his thoughts added, “And even if poor Maurice does die soon, I need fear nothing!”

Now that their two fates seemed settled, Miss Delburg got out of the chair and stood up in a dignified way; her soft cheeks were the color of a glowing pink rose, and her violet eyes shone with fun and excitement, her little, irregular features and perfect teeth seemed to add to the infantine aspect of the picture she made in her unfashionable pink cotton frock.  Dress had been strongly discouraged at the Convent, and was looked upon by Aunt Jemima, a strict New Englander, as a snare of the devil, but even the garment, in the selecting of which she had had no hand, seemed to hang with grace upon the child’s slim figure.

Not a doubt as to the future clouded her thoughts; it was all a glorious piece of fun, and of all the daring tricks she had perpetrated at the Convent to get chocolates, or climb a tree, or have a midnight orgy of cake and sirop, none had been so exciting as this—­to go through the ceremony of marriage and be free for life!