She left them, saying that if the Doctor had not returned by eight she would serve dinner for Miss Warne alone.
"No, please, Mrs. MacFayden," begged Georgiana. "If my father has his tray here I will see him to his bed. I really do not care for dinner at all."
The housekeeper smiled. "The Doctor would na" be pleased wi" me, if I let ye go dinnerless," she said. "But I"m thinkin" we"ll see him soon.
Wull ye coom doon to the library, Miss Warne, when ye"re ready? "Tis the door at the right o" the front entrance. The door on the left is the waitin" room, an" the Doctor does na" keep office hours at nicht."
With a fast-beating heart Georgiana set about making ready for that descent to the library. The whole affair was becoming more and more a strain upon her nerves. If Doctor Craig had met them at the station it would have been far easier for her than this. But here she was, actually in his house, combing her hair in his guest-room, going down to dinner at his table--and she had not seen or heard from him, except by telegram, since the hour when he had given her hand that meaning pressure and left her with her friends. It was an extraordinary experience, to say the least.
She wondered how she should dress for dinner--the dinner that she might eat alone! She had only her traveling suit and one simple little gray silk, dyed from a white "Semi-Annual" and made very simply, with a wide collar and cuffs of white net. Anybody but Georgiana would have looked like a Quakeress in the gray silk, but with her dark hair and warm colouring she succeeded only in imitating a young nun but just removed from scenes of worldly gayety! She decided that the hour and the occasion called for this frock, and put it on with fingers which shook a little.
Eight o"clock. She dared wait no longer, so, making sure that her father, having eaten and drunk, was resting luxuriously on his bed, she opened her door. The house seemed very quiet, and she went slowly along the upper hall, and after pausing a moment at the top of the fine staircase with its white spindles and mahogany rail, she began to descend. The steps were heavily padded and her footfall made no sound; therefore, as she afterward realized, a very close watch must have been kept, for the moment she came in sight of the open library door a figure appeared there.
The next moment Jefferson Craig had crossed the hall and was standing at the foot of the staircase, looking up at the descending guest. The guest, naturally enough, paused, four stairs up, looking down. The light, from a quaint lantern hood of wrought iron and crystal hanging above the newel post, shone full upon the dark head and vivid face above the demure gray frock with its nunlike broad collar and cuffs of thin white.
The man below looked for a full minute without speaking, but Georgiana could not have told what expression was upon his face or whether he smiled. She knew that at the end of that long look he stretched one arm toward her, and that obeying the gesture which was all but a command she came on down those four remaining steps. Jefferson Craig led her into the library, where a great fire sparkled and leaped and filled the room, otherwise sombre with books, full of welcoming cheer. He closed the door, then led her to the hearth.
"Where shall we begin?" he said, in that low but very distinct voice she so well remembered. "Where we left off?"
"I"m not," answered Georgiana, looking away from him into the fire, whose light flashed in her eyes less disconcertingly than that which she somehow knew leaped in his, "sure where we left off."
"Aren"t you? I am. We left off where we had each seen, for just one instant, into the other"s heart. And having seen there was no forgetting--no?--Georgiana?"
She shook her head.
"It was good of you to come to me," he said very gently. Her hand was still held fast in his. "I did my best to have it the other way--the usual way. There seemed a fate against it. I could have written, but somehow I didn"t want to. I preferred to wait--with the memory of your face always before me, till I could see it again. And now that I see it--bent down--and turned away"--he laughed a low laugh of content--"oh, look up, Georgiana! Surely you"re not afraid now. You know I"ve been loving you ever since I saw you first, in spite of thinking I must not, because of the one I understood you belonged to----"
She looked up then out of sheer astonishment. "Oh, no, not since you saw me first," she disputed. "It couldn"t be--and I thinking all the while----" She stopped in confusion at the revelation she might be making.
But he caught her up. "You thinking all the while--what? Tell me!"
"I thought--you hadn"t the least interest in me."
"Did you care whether I had or not?"
"I--tried not to care," confessed Georgiana navely. She smiled, a sparkling little smile. It was so clear now, that he wanted this confession.
He looked at her for a minute longer, then he said: "Don"t you think enough has been said to warrant--this?"
It was then that Georgiana learned how little one may judge from outward quiet of manner and controlled speech what may happen when the heart is allowed to speak for itself.
"Forgive me," he said at last, when he had released her, all enchanting confusion under his intent gaze; "but you know the breaking up of a famine sometimes makes human beings hard to manage. If you could know the times I"ve watched you, when you were bent over my illegible fist of copy, and thought how I should like just to put my hand on your beautiful hair----"
A knock sounded upon the door. With an exclamation of annoyance Doctor Craig left Georgiana and opened it.
"Dinner is served, sir," announced Thomas, the boy.
His master turned back with a laughing, remorseful face. "I had forgotten all about dinner," he said, "though now I come to think of it I believe I had no luncheon. You must be famishing. Mrs. MacFayden tells me your father is resting. We will go up and see him--before dinner or after?"
"I think he will drop off to sleep for a little, he is so tired, and then wake by and by and be ready to see you."
"Good! It couldn"t be better. I am eager to see Mr. Warne, but I want him to be ready for me--who have so much to ask of him. Meanwhile--shall we go?"
He offered her his arm, such graceful deference in his manner that she felt afresh the wonder of his wish to transplant her from her world to his. As they walked slowly through the dignified old hall he said in a tone of great satisfaction: "Mrs. MacFayden has ventured to hint to me more than once that this house is of the sort which needs a mistress.
To-night, when she saw me come in, she said to me very respectfully: "It"s a gled day for ye, Doctor, an" now that I"ve seen the la.s.sie I can congratulate ye wi" all mae hert. She"ll mak" a bonny lady to be at the head o" the hoose, if ye"ll permit me to say the thocht." I a.s.sure you, Georgiana, the conquest of my good Scottish housekeeper upon sight is no small achievement."
"It must have been my gray gown and white cuffs," suggested the girl demurely.
He looked down at the hand resting on his arm. "Now that I have time to look at anything but your face," he said, "I see that you are wearing something very satisfying to the eye. I like simple things, such as I have always seen you wear."
With inward astonishment and congratulation Georgiana thought of all the dyed and reconstructed "Semi-Annuals" which had marched in a frugal procession across his vision during the past year. Suddenly she felt an affection for the very frock she wore, difficult as had been its achievement from the materials in hand. Certainly, women in beautiful and wonderful clothing, such as he saw daily, had had no chance with him against the attraction of herself in the cleverly adapted makeshifts of her own fingers. It was the girl who had made the most of herself and her home out of her restricted means who had drawn to her side this man whose judgment must approve his love or he could never love at all.
Things hadn"t been so unequal after all. The wise G.o.d, who had set her life thus far in the midst of poverty, had given her with which to fight it the wit and resource which fashion weapons out of materials which more favoured mortals cast away. That greatest of gifts bestowed upon the daughters of men had been hers--the creative touch. At last she recognized it, and knew it for what it was. Using this good gift she had learned other things than the making of clothes!
A great warm surge of joy and understanding enveloped Georgiana Warne as Jefferson Craig, having led her into the dining-room and placed her ceremoniously in her chair, bent over her where she sat, saying softly:
"This place has been waiting a long time at the bachelor"s board. Now that I see it filled--like this--I know how well worth while it"s been to wait."
He took the place opposite her. With a nod at the boy Thomas, he dismissed him for the moment. He looked across the table, rich with the finest appointments in his house, arranged by a housekeeper who heartily approved his everyday simplicity of life, but who exulted to-night in the chance to show the lady of his choice the fine old heirlooms of silver and damask which were to come to her. Smiling, he lifted a delicately chased goblet of water which stood beside his plate.
"To my wife!" he said.
Georgiana, raising the face of a rose, took up her own gla.s.s. She looked at it a moment, her eyes like dark twin fires, her lips taking on lovely curves. Then she lifted it toward the man opposite.
"To--_you_!"
"Still afraid?" asked Jefferson Craig, watching her as one watches only that which is the delight of his eyes. "Never mind; I"ll teach you by and by the word I want to hear."
Upstairs, the slender figure on the bed stirred from the brief sleep which had claimed it. Father Davy opened his eyes again upon the firelit room and the pleasant comfort which surrounded him.
"Before they come," he thought, "I must tell my Father how I feel about it. I was too tired even to pray. But I am quite rested now."
He slipped down gently to his knees and closed his eyes, folding his thin hands on the heavy white counterpane before him.
"Dear G.o.d," he said, "I have the desire of my heart--the answer to my prayers--and I am very glad to-night. Yet Thou knowest my heart is heavy, too--with longing for my Phoebe. Tell her, Father, that her child is happy in the love of the best man she could have asked for. And tell her that David loves and longs for her to-night with the love that will never die. For that love that will not die in spite of years and pain I thank Thee. If it may be, give our child the same blessed experience.
And teach us to love and serve Thee, world without end, Amen."
CHAPTER XXIII
WHY NOT?
"There"s just one more thing to be settled," observed Dr. Jefferson Craig. "While we are settling things, suppose we attend to that."
He stood upon the hearthrug before the fire in his library, elbow on chimney piece, looking down upon his two guests. It was eight o"clock of the evening following that upon which Mr. David Warne and Georgiana had arrived at the big New York house in the old-time, downtown square.