It _was_ Marie Hawthorn"s wedding day, and certainly her eyes sparkled and her blood tingled as she threw open the window of her room and breathed long and deep of the fresh morning air before going down to breakfast.
"They say "Happy is the bride that the sun shines on,"" she whispered softly to an English sparrow that c.o.c.ked his eye at her from a neighboring tree branch. "As if a bride wouldn"t be happy, sun or no sun," she scoffed tenderly, as she turned to go down-stairs.
As it happens, however, tingling blood and sparkling eyes are a matter of more than weather, or even weddings, as was proved a little later when the telephone bell rang.
Kate answered the ring.
"Hullo, is that you, Kate?" called a despairing voice.
"Yes. Good morning, Bertram. Isn"t this a fine day for the wedding?"
"Fine! Oh, yes, I suppose so, though I must confess I haven"t noticed it--and you wouldn"t, if you had a lunatic on your hands."
"A lunatic!"
"Yes. Maybe you have, though. Is Marie rampaging around the house like a wild creature, and asking ten questions and making twenty threats to the minute?"
"Certainly not! Don"t be absurd, Bertram. What do you mean?"
"See here, Kate, that show comes off at twelve sharp, doesn"t it?"
"Show, indeed!" retorted Kate, indignantly. "The _wedding_ is at noon sharp--as the best man should know very well."
"All right; then tell Billy, please, to see that it is sharp, or I won"t answer for the consequences."
"What do you mean? What is the matter?"
"Cyril. He"s broken loose at last. I"ve been expecting it all along.
I"ve simply marvelled at the meekness with which he has submitted himself to be tied up with white ribbons and topped with roses."
"Nonsense, Bertram!"
"Well, it amounts to that. Anyhow, he thinks it does, and he"s wild. I wish you could have heard the thunderous performance on his piano with which he woke me up this morning. Billy says he plays everything--his past, present, and future. All is, if he was playing his future this morning, I pity the girl who"s got to live it with him."
"Bertram!"
Bertram chuckled remorselessly.
"Well, I do. But I"ll warrant he wasn"t playing his future this morning.
He was playing his present--the wedding. You see, he"s just waked up to the fact that it"ll be a perfect orgy of women and other confusion, and he doesn"t like it. All the samee,{sic} I"ve had to a.s.sure him just fourteen times this morning that the ring, the license, the carriage, the minister"s fee, and my sanity are all O. K. When he isn"t asking questions he"s making threats to snake the parson up there an hour ahead of time and be off with Marie before a soul comes."
"What an absurd idea!"
"Cyril doesn"t think so. Indeed, Kate, I"ve had a hard struggle to convince him that the guests wouldn"t think it the most delightful experience of their lives if they should come and find the ceremony over with and the bride gone."
"Well, you remind Cyril, please, that there are other people besides himself concerned in this wedding," observed Kate, icily.
"I have," purred Bertram, "and he says all right, let them have it, then. He"s gone now to look up proxy marriages, I believe."
"Proxy marriages, indeed! Come, come, Bertram, I"ve got something to do this morning besides to stand here listening to your nonsense. See that you and Cyril get here on time--that"s all!" And she hung up the receiver with an impatient jerk.
She turned to confront the startled eyes of the bride elect.
"What is it? Is anything wrong--with Cyril?" faltered Marie.
Kate laughed and raised her eyebrows slightly.
"Nothing but a little stage fright, my dear."
"Stage fright!"
"Yes. Bertram says he"s trying to find some one to play his role, I believe, in the ceremony."
"_Mrs. Hartwell!_"
At the look of dismayed terror that came into Marie"s face, Mrs.
Hartwell laughed rea.s.suringly.
"There, there, dear child, don"t look so horror-stricken. There probably never was a man yet who wouldn"t have fled from the wedding part of his marriage if he could; and you know how Cyril hates fuss and feathers.
The wonder to me is that he"s stood it as long as he has. I thought I saw it coming, last night at the rehearsal--and now I know I did."
Marie still looked distressed.
"But he never said--I thought--" She stopped helplessly.
"Of course he didn"t, child. He never said anything but that he loved you, and he never thought anything but that you were going to be his.
Men never do--till the wedding day. Then they never think of anything but a place to run," she finished laughingly, as she began to arrange on a stand the quant.i.ty of little white boxes waiting for her.
"But if he"d told me--in time, I wouldn"t have had a thing--but the minister," faltered Marie.
"And when you think so much of a pretty wedding, too? Nonsense! It isn"t good for a man, to give up to his whims like that!"
Marie"s cheeks grew a deeper pink. Her nostrils dilated a little.
"It wouldn"t be a "whim," Mrs. Hartwell, and I should be _glad_ to give up," she said with decision.
Mrs. Hartwell laughed again, her amused eyes on Marie"s face.
"Dear me, child! don"t you know that if men had their way, they"d--well, if men married men there"d never be such a thing in the world as a shower bouquet or a piece of wedding cake!"
There was no reply. A little precipitately Marie turned and hurried away. A moment later she was laying a restraining hand on Billy, who was filling tall vases with superb long-stemmed roses in the kitchen.
"Billy, please," she panted, "couldn"t we do without those? Couldn"t we send them to some--some hospital?--and the wedding cake, too, and--"
"The wedding cake--to some _hospital!_"
"No, of course not--to the hospital. It would make them sick to eat it, wouldn"t it?" That there was no shadow of a smile on Marie"s face showed how desperate, indeed, was her state of mind. "I only meant that I didn"t want them myself, nor the shower bouquet, nor the rooms darkened, nor little Kate as the flower girl--and would you mind very much if I asked you not to be my maid of honor?"
"_Marie!_"