What on earth was he to do about that? Tell
her? But if he told her, wouldn't she chuck him on the spot?
This was awful. The dreamy sense of well-being left him. He
straightened himself to face this problem, ignoring the hint of
James, who was weaving circles about his legs expectant of more
tickling. A man cannot spend his time tickling cats when he has to
concentrate on a dilemma of this kind.
Suppose he didn't tell her? How would that work out? Was a marriage
legal if the cove who was being married went through it under a
false name? He seemed to remember seeing a melodrama in his boyhood
the plot of which turned on that very point. Yes, it began to come
back to him. An unpleasant bargee with a black moustache had said,
'This woman is not your wife!' and caused the dickens of a lot of
unpleasantness; but there in its usual slipshod way memory failed.
Had subsequent events proved the bargee right or wrong? It was a
question for a lawyer to decide. Jerry Nichols would know. Well,
there was plenty of time, thank goodness, to send Jerry Nichols a
cable, asking for his professional opinion, and to get the straight
tip long before the wedding day arrived.
Laying this part of it aside for the moment, and assuming that the
thing could be worked, what about the money? Like a chump, he had
told Elizabeth on the first day of his visit that he hadn't any
money except what he made out of his job as secretary of the club.
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