of them, that Davenport Carr happened to be his own lawyer, and that he guessed some of the fuss that might follow this marriage. All that concerned him was that they were of age and of sound mind. And as they stood before him, both dressed in white flannels as if they were about to play a game of tennis, he thought he had never seen a more engaging pair of human beings.
Valerie looked up at him and thought at once that since she had to go through with this stupid affair it was nice to have someone with the humorous eyes that Bruce had to manage it. And she was still more attracted to him when he spoke. She felt he was, as Dane had said, a man with a wide knowledge of good and evil, and a mind that nothing could take unawares. He smilingly reassured her as to the secrecy of this objectionable transaction. Nobody ever asked to see the register, he said. He mightn’t marry anyone again for six months, as most people preferred the church. It was possible to over-look a record in one quarter and to remember it at a later date. One took risks in the interest of the personal equation. His manager, Bob Hargraves, who would have to witness the ceremony, could be trusted not to tell even his wife.
Immediately after the ceremony Valerie took off the ring that Dane had remembered to buy in Auckland, and as she signed the register she could not resist her little fling.
“To think that this is all that stands between morality and immorality in the eyes of this crazy world, and that I’m supposed to respect the people who believe it is! My God! It’s unbelievable. Three minutes’ rigmarole to do a thing that it takes courts and lawyers and witnesses weeks of beastly mess and tangle to undo! It’s beyond me. And I vowed I’d never go through it.” She turned
