XVII
A FEW minutes later, amid a hideous scene of riot, where young men werefleeing distractedly in every direction, where excited young girls weredragging them, struggling and screaming, into cabs, where even the policewere rushing hither and thither in desperate search for a place to hidein, the Governor of New York and Professor Elizabeth Challis might havebeen seen whirling downtown in a taxicab toward the marriage licensebureau.
Her golden head lay close to his; his moustache rested against herdelicately flushed cheek. A moment later she sat up straight in direconsternation.
"Oh, those papers! The draft of the bill!" she exclaimed. "Where is it?"
"Did you want it, Betty?" he asked, surprised.
"Why--why, no. Didn't you want it, George?"
"I? Not at all."
"Then why on earth did you keep me imprisoned in that room so long if youdidn't want those papers?"
He said slowly: "Why didn't you give them up to me if _you_ didn't reallywant them, Betty?"
She shook her pretty head. "I don't know. . . . But I'm afraid it wasonly partly obstinacy."
"It was only partly that with me," he said.
They smiled.
"I just wanted to detain you, I suppose," he admitted.
"George, you wouldn't expect me to match that horrid confession--wouldyou?"
"No, I wouldn't ask it of you."
He laid his cheek against hers and whispered: "Darling, do you think ourgreat love justifies our concealing my myopia?"
"George," she murmured, "I think it does. . . . Besides, I'm dreadfullynear-sighted myself."
"You!"
"Dear, every one of us has got _something_ the matter with her. MissVining, who caught the Mayor, wears a rat herself. . . . Do you mean tosay that men believe there ever was a perfect woman?"
He kissed her slowly. "_I_ believe it," he said.