"Because there are laws and injunctions which expressly forbid such romantic excursions. Your fanciful little brain has no conception as yet of life and its duties; but I know them, and it would ill become me, whose vocation it is to defend the law, to trample it underfoot."
"What do I care for laws and injunctions?" said Molly, deeply offended by this cool rejection of her romantic scheme. "How can you talk of such prosaic things when our love is at stake? What are we to do if papa and mamma persist in saying no?"
"First of all we must wait until your granduncle has really gone home. There is nothing to be done with that stiff old aristocrat; in his eyes I, as a man without a title, am perfectly unfitted to woo a Baroness Ernsthausen. As soon as his influence is no longer present in your household I shall surely have an interview with your father, and shall try to overcome his prejudice; it will be no easy task, but we must have patience and wait."
The little Baroness was thunderstruck at this declaration, this utter ruin of all her air-built castles. Instead of the romantic flight and secret marriage of which she had dreamed, here was her lover counselling patience and prudence; instead of bearing her off in his arms, he talked as if he were ready to institute legal proceedings for her possession. It was altogether too much, and she burst out angrily, "You had better declare at once that you do not care for me, after all; that you have not the courage to win me. You talked very differently before we were betrothed. But I give you back your troth; I will part from you forever; I----" Here she began to sob. "I will marry some man with no end of ancestors whom my granduncle approves of, but I shall die of grief, and before the year is out I shall be in my grave."
"Molly, look at me! Do you seriously doubt my love?"
This was the tender tone which Molly remembered only too well,--the tone in which the words had been spoken that evening in the fragrant, dim conservatory, to which she had listened with a throbbing heart and glowing cheeks. She stopped sobbing and looked up through her tears at her lover as he bent above her.
"Darling Molly, have you no confidence in me? You have given yourself to me, and I shall keep you for my own in spite of all opposition. Be sure I shall not let my happiness be snatched from me, although some time may pass before I can carry home my little wife."