"
"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 impatience 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 there little spots of territory had been
reconquered. An elderly, bald man, with a superlatively calm,
remote eye, stood by a table with a book in his hand, his finger
still marking a page.
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