He thought a moment. "Oh, nothing," he said. "What"s the use of discussing what can"t be helped?" How could he tell her that the greatest factor in his enervating environment was herself; that the strongest chains which held him in it were the chains which bound him to her? Indeed, was he not indulging in cowardly self-excuse in thinking that this was true? Had not his success, rather than his love, made ambition unfettered by principle the mainspring of his life?
XX.
ILLUSION.
"How shall we be married?" Howard asked her in the late Autumn.
"I know it will not be in a church with ushers and bridesmaids and a crowd gaping at us. I suppose there is a public side to marriage since the state makes one enter into a formal contract. But that can be done privately. I should as soon think of driving down the Avenue with my arms about your neck as of a public wedding."
"Thank you," he laughed. "I was afraid--well, women are usually so fond of--but you"re not usual. Let us see. The minister is absolutely necessary, I suppose. Would one feel married if there were not a minister?"
"I don"t know--I feel--"
She hesitated and blushed but looked straight at him with that expression in her eyes which always made him think of their love as their religion.
"Feel--go on. I want to hear that very, very much."
"I feel as if I were just as much married to you now as I ever could be."
"And that is how I have felt ever since the day, when I hardly knew you, when you suddenly came into my life--my real, inner life where no one had been before--and sat down and at once made it look as if it were your home. And the place that had been lonely was lonely no more, and has not been since."
She put her hand in his and he saw that there were tears in her eyes.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Only that--that I am so happy. It--it frightens me. It seems so like a dream."
"It"s going to be a long, long dream, isn"t it?" He lifted her hand and kissed it, then put it down in her lap again gently as if he feared a sudden movement might awaken them. "Perhaps it had better be at Mrs.
Carnarvon"s house--some morning just before luncheon and we could go quietly away afterward."
"Yes--and--tell me," she said, "wouldn"t it be better for us not to go far away--and not to stay long? It seems to me that I most want to begin--begin our life together just as it will be."
"Are you afraid you wouldn"t know what to do with me if I were idling about all day long?"
"Not exactly that. But I"d rather not take a vacation until we had earned it together."
"What a beautiful idea! I"ll see what I can do."
They postponed the wedding until Howard had the "art-department" of the _News-Record_ well established. It was on a bright winter day in the second week of January that they stood up together and were married by the Mayor whom Howard had helped to elect. Only Mr. and Mrs. Carnarvon and Marian"s brother were there. Then the six sat down to luncheon, and at three o"clock Howard and his wife started for Lakewood.
When they arrived a victoria was waiting. As soon as they were seated, Howard said "Home." The coachman touched his hat and the horses set out at a swift trot. The sun was setting and the dry, still air was saturated with the perfume of the snow-draped pines. Within five minutes the carriage was at a pretty little cottage with wide, gla.s.s-enclosed porches. They entered the hall. In the rooms on either side open fires were blazing an ecstatic welcome.
"How do you like "home"?" asked Howard.
"I don"t quite understand."
"You remember your plan of beginning at once. Well--this is the compromise. Stokely has let me have his house here for a month--we may keep it two if we like it. There is a telephone. The office isn"t two hours away by rail. The newspapers are here early. We can combine work and play."
The manservant had left the room, a sort of library-reception room.
Marian was seated in a big chair drawn near the fire. She had thrown back her wraps and was slowly drawing off her gloves. Howard stood at the side of the fire, leaning against the mantel and looking down at her.
"Before you definitely decide to stay--" he paused.
"Yes," she said, her colour heightening as she slowly lifted her eyes to his, "yes--why this solemn tone?"
"If ever--in the days that come--one never knows what may happen--if ever you should find that you had changed toward me----"
"Yes?"
"I ask you--don"t promise--I never want you to promise me anything--I want you always--at every moment--to be perfectly free. So I just ask that you will let me see it. Then we can talk about it frankly, and we can decide what is best to do."
"But--suppose--you see I might still not wish to wound you--" she suggested, half teasing, half in earnest.
"It seems to me now that it is impossible that we can ever change. It seems to me--" he sat on the wide arm of her chair, and leaned over until his head touched hers, "that if you were to change it would break my heart. But if you were to change and were to hide it from me, I should find it out some day and----"
"And what----"
"It would be worse--a broken heart, a horror of myself, a--a contempt for you."
"Whatever comes, I"ll be myself or try to be. Is that what you mean?"
"Exactly."
"And if you change?"
"But I shall not!"
"Why do you say that so positively?"
"Because--well, there are some things that we wish to believe and half believe, and some things that we believe that we believe, and somethings that we _know_. I _know_ about you--about my love for you."
"It is strange in a way, isn"t it?" Marian was gently drawing her fingers through his. "This is all so different from what I used to think love would be. I used to picture to myself a man, something like you in appearance, only taller and fair, who would be my master, who would make me do what he wished. I think a woman always dreams of a lover who will be strong enough to be her ruler. And here----"
"So I am not the strong man that you look up to and tremble before? We shall see."
"Don"t laugh at me. I mean that instead I have a man who makes me rule myself. You make me feel strong, not weak, and proud, not humble. You make me respect myself so."
"The democracy of love--freedom, equality, fraternity. Don"t you like it?"
"Madame is served." It was the servant holding back one of the portieres, his face expressionless, his eyes down.
Happiness evades description or a.n.a.lysis. We can only say that it reaches its highest point when a man and a woman, intelligent, appreciative, sympathetic, endowed with youth, health and freedom, are devoting their energies solely and determinedly to verifying each a preconceived idea of the other.