"Yes, I suppose so," he answered. "But all the same, I hate it; when you once begin conforming, you never know where you'll stop."

"_We_ shall know," declared the other. "Whatever we may have to do to get married, we shall both of us know that neither would ever dream of wishing to hold the other for a moment after love had ceased. And that is the essential thing, is it not?"

"Yes," a.s.sented Thyrsis. "I suppose so."

"Well, then, we'll make that bargain between us; that will be _our_ marriage."

"That suits me better," he replied.

She thought for a moment, and then said, with a laugh, "Let us have a little ceremony of our own."

"Very well," said he.

"Are you ready for it now?" she inquired. "Your mind is quite made up?"

"Quite made up."

She looked about her, to make sure that no one was in sight; and then she put her hand in his. "I have been to weddings," she said. "And so I know how they do it.--I take thee, Thyrsis, to be the companion of my soul. I give myself to thee freely, for the sake of love, and I will stay so long as thy soul is better with me than without. But if ever this should cease to be, I will leave thee; for if my soul is weaker than thine, I have no right to be thy mate."

She paused. "Is that right?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, "that is right."

"Very well then," she said; "and now, you say it!"

And she made him repeat the words--"I take thee, Corydon, to be the companion of my soul. I give myself to thee freely, for the sake of love, and I will stay so long as thy soul is better with me than without. But if ever this should cease to be, I will leave thee; for if my soul is weaker than thine, I have no right to be thy mate."

"Now," she exclaimed, with an eager laugh--"now we're married!" And as he looked he caught the glint of a tear in her eyes.

Section 3. But the world would not be content to leave it on that basis. When they parted that afternoon, it was with a carefully-arranged program of work--they were to visit each other on alternate days and go on with their German and music. But in less than a week they had run upon an obstruction; there was no quiet room for them at Corydon's save her bedroom, and one evening when Thyrsis came, she made the announcement that they could no longer study there.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Well," explained Corydon, "they say the maid might think it wasn't nice."

She had expected him to fly into a rage, but he only smiled grimly. "I had come to tell you the same sort of thing," he explained. "It seems you can't visit me so often, and you're never to stay after ten o'clock at night."

"Why is that?" she inquired.

"It's a question of what the hall-boy might think," said he.

They sat gazing at each other in silence. "You see," said Thyrsis, at last, "the thing is impossible--we've got to go and get married. The world will never give us any peace until we do."

"n.o.body has any idea of what we mean!" exclaimed Corydon.

"No idea whatever," he said. "They've nothing in them in anyway to correspond with it. You talk to them about souls, and they haven't any. You talk to them about love, and they think you mean obscenity.

Everybody is thinking obscenity about us!"

"Everybody but our parents," put in Corydon.

To which he answered, angrily, "They are thinking of what the others are thinking."

But everybody seemed to have to think something, and that was the aspect of the matter that puzzled them most. Why did everybody find it necessary to be thinking about it at all? Why did everybody consider it his business? As Thyrsis phrased it--"Why the h.e.l.l can't they let us alone?"

"We've got to get married," said she. "That's the only way to get the best of them."

"But is that really getting the best of them?" he objected. "Isn't that their purpose--to make us get married?"

This was a pregnant question, but they did not follow it up just then.

They went on to the practical problem of where and when and how to accomplish their purpose.

"We can go to a court," said he.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "We'd have to meet a lot of men, and I couldn't stand it."

"But surely you don't want to go to a church!" he said.

"Couldn't we get some clergyman to marry us quietly?"

"But then, there's a lot of rigmarole!"

"But mightn't he leave it out?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said. "They generally believe in it, you see."

He decided to make an attempt, however.

"Let's go to-morrow morning," he said. "I'm going over to have the sound-post set in my violin, and that'll take an hour or so. Perhaps we can finish it up in the meantime."

"A good idea," said Corydon. "It'll give me to-night to tell mother and father."

Section 4. So behold them, the next morning, emerging from the little shop of the violin-dealer, and seeking for some one to fasten them in the holy bonds of matrimony! They were walking down a great avenue, and there were many churches--but they were all rich churches. "I never thought about it before," said Thyrsis. "But I wonder if there are any poor churches in the city!"

They stopped in front of one brown-stone structure that looked a trifle less elaborate. "It says Presbyterian," said Corydon, reading the sign.

"I wonder how they do it."

"I don't know," said he. "But he'd want a lot of money, I'm sure."

"But mightn't he have a curate, or something?"

"Goose," laughed Thyrsis, "there are no Presbyterian curates!"

"Well, you know what I mean," she said--"an a.s.sistant, or an apprentice, or something."

"I don't know," said he. "Let's go and ask."

So, with much trepidation, they rang the bell of the parsonage on the side-street. But the white-capped maid who answered told them that the pastor was not in, and that there were no curates or apprentices about.

They went on.