He winked at Sarah with the eye which was hidden from Madge. “The Secret Marriage, Sarah. That’s what it means.”
Sarah was interested now. “Does it tell you how to work it?”
“Don’t talk so foolish, Sam,” said his sister. “Are you coming for a walk, Sarah?”
“When I’m ready,” said Sarah. “Now then, young Sam, spit it out.”
“Oh,” said Sam. “It isn’t much. Only I happened to be out for a walk with George Chappie the other day and we went into a house that’s pretty full of furniture.”
“George Chappie with a house of furniture!” cried Madge.
“I suppose he’s getting married,” said Sam. “He courted you at one time, didn’t he, Madge? I rather liked his taste in furniture.”
“Taste!” cried Madge with spirit. “I’ll taste him. I’ll eat him raw for this. After all he said to me no more than a month ago, to take up with another wench! What’s the hussy’s name?”
“Her name?” said Sam. “Let’s see. Sunday to-morrow, isn’t it? The banns might be up. If I were you I’d go and find out.”
“As true as I’m alive I’ll tear every hair from her head,” said Madge.
“I wouldn’t,” said Sam. “You have red hair, but better red than bald.”
“Look here, Sarah,” Sam interrupted, and used a formula which he had thought out rather carefully. “Do you imagine I’d be giving you a message like this if he hadn’t sent it?”
“Yes, Sarah,” she heard Sam saying with a pedagogic air. “The word clandestine means secret.” He resumed with zest the reading of his play and, though theirs was a small house, managed to avoid being alone with Madge up to church time on the morrow. He had business out that Saturday night--to make sure of George, whom he found full of panting resolution to catch the clerk and cancel the banns. The glamour of that furniture had lasted this long with George, but the awful hazard of the Sunday morning eclipsed the glow as it came nearer. George wilted at the thought of Madge rising in her place with a firm, irrevocable “I forbid the banns” upon her lips.
There had begun, too, to be a quality too much like that of an Arabian night about his visit to the Club. Sam was a wonderful boy and George granted his high superiority; but even George, the humble, did not quite see Sam as a miracle-worker. He even began to doubt the existence of the enchanted Palace which Sam had shown him, and that it was within Sam’s competence to hand over that house to him appeared now ridiculous. Sam came just in time.