"I'll come some day and be glad to," she said; "but I'm off to-morrow for two weeks in Paris. I always go there when I'm blue; it cheers one up so, and you meet more Americans there nowadays than you do at home."
"Perhaps you will see the happy pair before you return," suggested Lady Scarsdale.
"Now, your ladyship," said Aunt Eliza, "that isn't fair; but to tell you the truth of the matter, I've no more idea where they are going, beyond their first stop, than you have."
"They will write you from there to-morrow," replied Miss Cogbill, "and then you will know as much as I do."
Scarsdale was quite too happy to be seriously worried over his ignorance of their destination; in fact, he was rather amused at his wife's little mystery, and, beyond indulging in some banter on the subject, was well content to let the matter drop. He entertained her, however, by making wild guesses as to where they were to pass the night from what he had learned of their point of departure, Waterloo Station; but soon turned to more engrossing topics, and before he realised it an hour had passed away, and the train began to slow up for their first stop out of London.
"Is this the end of our journey?" he queried.
"What, Basingstoke?" she cried. "How could you think I'd be so unromantic? Why, it is only a miserable, dirty railway junction!"
"Wrong again; but the train stops for a few minutes, and if you'll be good you may run out and have a breath of fresh air and something to drink."
"How do you know," he asked, "that I sha'n't go forward and see how the luggage is labelled?"
"That would not be playing fair," she replied, pouting, "and I should be dreadfully cross with you."
"I'll promise to be good," he hastened to assure her, and, as the train drew up, stepped out upon the platform.
His first intention had been to make straight for the refreshment-room; but he had only taken a few steps in that direction, when he saw advancing from the opposite end of the train none other than Robert Allingford, who, like himself, was a bridegroom of that day.
"Why, Benedick!" he cried, "who would have thought of meeting you!"
"Just what I was going to say," replied the Consul, heartily shaking his outstretched hand. "I never imagined that we would select the same train. Come, let's have a drink to celebrate our auspicious meeting. There is time enough."