The bride"s pallor was noticed now, her pretty smile was a little fixed.
The groom, on the contrary, affected the hearty, the jovial: his manly backbone was obviously rea.s.serting itself, now that he was a lawful protector henceforward. It was observed on all sides that they made a good-looking and well-matched couple.
So Angela and Donald went out on their great adventure. And Charles went with them down the walkway, with a bag or two to carry, doing his duty as he saw it, to the end. With his own hands he clicked shut the door of their wedding-coach. (A liveried one it was, the symbolic vehicle not being available, for reasons explained.) "We"ll hope to see you soon, in our own Home," said Angela, the Home-Maker, the very last thing. And then the coach leapt away, and he, the old princ.i.p.al friend, stood motionless, bareheaded in the mild sunshine, staring after it....
Stepping up on the verandah again, Charles encountered the relative who had welcomed him on arrival--Mrs. Flinchman, Finchman, did she say?--and who now welcomed him anew, beaming.
"Well, Mr. Garrott!--your friend is a fortunate young man, is he not? I don"t think I ever knew a sweeter, truer, more womanly girl. And you,"
she queried, with immense archness, "knew her so very well, too, I believe?"
He intimated pleasantly that few, indeed, had known her better, perhaps: whereon the lady"s expression grew more significant than ever.
"Well, no wonder the men were all flocking about her, I"m sure--a lovely, old-time young woman! But I understand it was love at first sight with these two--they simply _flew_ together! Ah," said Mrs.
Finchman (Flinchman?) with a sigh, which, however, did not disturb the deeply gratified look indigenous to women at weddings--"ah, it"s very sweet! A real old-fashioned romance, that"s what I call it, Mr. Garrott!
And now that we"ve come to the end of the story, who can doubt that they"ll live happy ever after--as you literary men are so fond of putting it?"
"Who, indeed, madam? It--all went off very smoothly, I thought?
Well!--"
"You must be going? Then _good_-bye!--so sorry it"s over! Knowing of you so well as dear Angela"s faithful friend, Mr. Garrott, I feel that we are anything but strangers, and hope so much you will find time to come in and see us, one evening very soon. We live quietly on Mason Street, next to the Methodist Church--I and my sweet girl Jennie."
He left the house, after all, with Mary Wing, who was going home for an hour"s work on school examination-books, before returning to sup with Mrs. Flower. This decision she had casually communicated, by the hatstand just now. So the "holiday-time" came to a six-blocks" walk: and even that was an after-thought. Truly, if a man had a mind to see this woman, without definite transactions to discuss, he had need of all his delicacy and tact. Calls, drives, bridge-parties, going to places, doing things: she had no room in her life for such as these. Time was more precious to Mary than to a writer. And she had convinced one writer, at least, by a moving tribute to his perfect friendship, that she had never had a personal thought of him in her life.
But Charles did not despair. He was a young man still. And meantime he was happy.
"You should wear a hat like that every day," she said, agreeably, as they turned into Washington Street. "You look seven feet tall at least.... By the way, did you feel your ears burning, about one o"clock to-day?"
He said no, and smiled a little. Her intention of keeping the conversation away from certain topics--topics that might have been uppermost in both their minds to-day, perhaps--had been perfectly evident to him from the moment they crossed the verandah.
"I met Judge Blenso as I came home to lunch," continued Mary, "and he stopped for a talk--purely to tell me what a wonderful person you were, it seemed. But in that connection, he gave me some exciting news--that you"ve just had a very flattering offer for "Bondwomen"--and refused it!
I couldn"t understand why."
At that, he looked subtly pleased, while affecting but a modest amus.e.m.e.nt. The event in question had been, in truth, sweet balm to the spirit and the confidence bruised in so many rebuffs. Still, his reply was only that his relative was born for a press-agent clearly. Requested to explain this dark saying, he gave a light disparaging account of his only offer, stating that Appleholt Brothers, before accepting his book, had desired him to rewrite it throughout, completely revolutionizing the character of his heroine and omitting not less than fifty thousand words, including the existing plot.
Mary glanced up at him. "I"m taking this with a little salt--shall I?"
The author laughed. "Well, it was about like that. Still," he added, as if there were such a thing as carrying modesty too far,--"of course I could do what they want easily enough--in a month, I think."
"You don"t seem excited at all. But you aren"t going to do it?"
"On the contrary, I have now formally changed the name of my old novel to "Bandwomen," and--put it in the Morgue."
"The Morgue?"
"A repository for deceased ma.n.u.scripts, recently founded by my relative."
"Oh!" said she, slowly. And, after a pause: "You don"t feel any longer that it"s good?"
"I _do_ feel that it"s good! I"d swear it--before a publishers"
convention. But--it doesn"t happen to be the story I want to write any more. I"m not interested in it."
There was another pause.
"It doesn"t represent you now, I suppose? And the one you do want to write?--you"re writing it, aren"t you? Judge Blenso says you work till all hours of the night--and this is going to be your masterpiece."
"I shall have to caution the Judge about this, I see. We won"t have a friend left, between us."
"But I"m interested, very much so. I"ve wondered ... Do you remember your speech at the Redmantle Club last winter--on work for women? Do you think you"d make the same speech to-day?"
"Oh," he said, lightly, "I don"t know quite so much as I did last winter, you see. I"m not in the cla.s.s with the lady in Sweden any more.... Why do you suspect my--loyalty?"
"Suspect?--no. I was only deducing from what you just said. I know something about the point of view you took in "Bondwomen"--you told me once--and now if you"re so dissatisfied with it that--"
"No!--no! It isn"t that! My point of view hasn"t changed at all. It"s only--"
He glanced down at her, and away, suddenly struck with hidden significances, abruptly recalling that this woman beside him had played hardly less part in the making of "Bondwomen" than in "Bondwomen"s"
final consignment to the Morgue....
"I--I want to approach the whole question differently--lay a different emphasis--that"s all.... But if I believed in the value of work last year, as--as a liberal education in responsibility--I believe in it ten times as much now. Don"t you know that?"
"I"m glad you feel so. And that"s what you"re going to say in this book?"
"Hardly anything else."
They walked on a little way in silence. The afternoon was fine; the last flickers of a vernal sun danced along the sidewalks. Many people moved on the promenade. The pa.s.sing moderns attracted the favorable gaze of not a few acquaintances In appearance, Mary was judged one of the variable women. She, the worker, with her habitually colorless face and faintly fragile look, responded remarkably to dress, as Charles had once before had occasion to note. And to-day, she was dressed as for a holiday and a fete. However, he hardly looked at her once, throughout the brief walk.
"Do you know," she said suddenly, again with some touch of consciousness, he thought,--"every conversation you and I have had for months has been about _me_? That came over me, with a sort of shock--the other day. I feel that there"s a great arrears to make up. And I doubt if you know how much I"ve wanted to hear about this book--since you told me you had your "line" straight at last. See how I remember.... Don"t you mean to give me any idea what the story"s to be about?"
The young man"s heart seemed to move a little within him.
"Can you imagine a writer"s turning away from an opening like that?"
"Well--but when will you?"
"It"s a long story. I don"t think I could make it all clear in five or seven minutes--and that"s all the time you have to spare nowadays."
"Do I seem as bad as that?... But I know literally nothing about it yet, you see, except what I"ve just extracted. Idleness is bad for able-bodied persons, including women. Does that state your point of view--approximately?"
"Precisely."
"And how are you developing it this time? I mean--with a working-woman as your central figure?"
"No--princ.i.p.ally with a woman who has nothing to do--and reacts accordingly."
"Oh!... That"s what you mean by a difference of approach, I suppose?
She"s married?"
"No--that"s the trouble."