outcome: either of importunate brazenness or of utter innocence. The lover’s perspective contained only the one.
“The sooner,” said Lorison, “the happier I shall be.”
“What is there to do?” she asked. “What do you have to get? Come! You should know.”
Her energy stirred the dreamer to action.
“A city directory first,” he cried, gayly, “to find where the man lives who gives licenses to happiness. We will go together and rout him out. Cabs, cars, policemen, telephones and ministers shall aid us.”
“Father Rogan shall marry us,” said the girl, with ardour. “I will take you to him.”
An hour later the two stood at the open doorway of an immense, gloomy brick building in a narrow and lonely street. The license was tight in Norah’s hand.
“Wait here a moment,” she said, “till I find Father Rogan.”
She plunged into the black hallway, and the lover was left standing, as it were, on one leg, outside. His impatence was not greatly taxed. Gazing curiously into what seemed the hallway to Erebus, he was presently reassured by a stream of light that bisected the darkness, far down the passage. Then he heard her call, and fluttered lampward, like the moth. She beckoned him through a doorway into the room whence emanated the light. The room was bare of nearly everything except books, which had subjugated all its space. Here and
