She grew abruptly solemn when the clerk looked at her for answers
to the same questions on her part; for she realized that she was
expected to tell her real name and her parents' real names. She
would have to confess to Tommie that she had deceived him and
cheated him out of a beautiful poem. Had he known the truth he
would never have written:
Pretty maid, pretty maid, may I call you Kedzie?
Your last name is Thropp, but your first name is--
Nothing rhymed with _Kedzie_.
While she gaped, wordless, Gilfoyle magnificently spoke for her,
proudly informed the clerk that her name was "Anita Adair," that
she was white (he nearly said "pink"), that her age was--he had
to ask that, and she told him nineteen. He gave her residence as
New York and her occupation as "none."
"What is your father's first name, honey?" he said, a little
startled to realize how little he knew of her or her past. She
had learned much news of him, too, in hearing his own answers.
"Adna," she whispered, and he told the clerk that her father's name
was Adna Adair. She told the truth about her mother's maiden name.
She could afford to do that, and she could honestly aver that she
had never had any husband or husbands "up to yet," and that she
had not been divorced "so far." Also both declared that they knew
of no legal impediment to their marriage. There are so few legal
impediments to marriage, and so many to the untying of the knot
into which almost anybody can tie almost anybody!
The clerk's facile pen ran here and there, and the license was
delivered at length on the payment of a dollar.
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