“That isn’t worrying you surely?” asked the other in astonishment.
“It worries me a bit,” said Gilbert moodily. “One never knows, you know—”
He stood looking thoughtfully at the other, his hands thrust into his pockets.
“I wish to heaven this wedding had been postponed!”
Leslie laughed.
“It’s about time you were married,” he said. “What a jumpy ass you are.”
He looked at his watch.
“You’d better hurry up, or you’ll be losing this bride of yours. After all, this isn’t a day for gloom; it’s the day of days, my friend.”
He saw the soft look that came into Gilbert’s eyes, and felt satisfied with his work.
“Yes, there is that,” said Gilbert Standerton softly. “I forgot all my blessings. God bless her!” he said under his breath.
As they were leaving the house, Gilbert asked—
“I suppose you have a list of the guests who are to be present?”
“Yes,” said the other, “Mrs. Cathcart was most duteous.”
“Will Dr. Barclay-Seymour be there?” asked the other carelessly.
“Barclay-Seymour—no, he won’t be there,” replied Leslie, “he’s the Leeds Johnnie, isn’t he? He went up from London last night. What’s this talk of your having run away the other night?”
“It was an important engagement,” said Gilbert hurriedly, “I had a man to see; I couldn’t very well put him off—”
Leslie realised that he had asked an embarrassing question and changed the subject.
“By the way,” he said, “I shouldn’t mention this matter of the money to Mrs. Cathcart till after you’ve both settled down.”
“I won’t,” said Gilbert grimly.
On the way to the church he reviewed all the troubles that were besetting him and faced them squarely. Perhaps it would not be as bad as he thought. He was ever prone to take an exaggerated and a worrying view of troubles. He had anticipated dangers, and time and time again his fears had been groundless. He had lived too long alone. A man ought to be married before he was thirty-two. That was his age. He had become cranky. He found consolation in uncomplimentary analysis till the church was reached.
It was a dream, that ceremony: the crowded pews, the organ, the white-robed choir, the rector and his assistants; the coming of Edith, so beautiful, so ethereal in her bridal robes; the responses, the kneeling and the rising—it was all unreal.
He had thought that the music would have made a lasting impression on him; he had been at some pains to choose it, and had had several consultations with the organist. But at the end of the service when he began to walk, still in his dream, towards the vestry, he could not recall one single bar. He had a dim recollection of the fact that above the altar was a stained glass window, one tiny pane of which had been removed, evidently on account of a breakage.
He was back in the house, sitting at the be-flowered table, listening in some confusion to the speeches and the bursts of laughter which assailed each speaker as he made his point: now he was on his feet, talking easily, without effort, but what words he used, or why people applauded, or why they smiled he could not say.
Once in its course he had looked down at the delicate face by his side, and had met those solemn eyes of hers, less fearful today, it seemed, than ever he had seen them. He had felt for her hand and had held it, cold and unresponsive, in his. …
“An excellent speech,” said Leslie.
They were in the drawing-room after the breakfast.
“You’re quite an orator.”
“Am I?” said Gilbert.
He was beginning to wake again. The drawing-room was real, these people were real, the jokes, the badinage, and the wit which flew from tongue to tongue—all these things were of a life he knew.
“Whew!” He wiped his forehead and breathed a deep sigh. He felt like a man who had regained consciousness after an anaesthetic that did not quite take effect. A painless and a beautiful experience, but of another world, and it was not he, so he told himself, who had knelt at the altar rail.
Officially the honeymoon was to be spent at Harrogate, actually it was to be spent in London. They preserved the pretence of catching a train, and drove to King’s Cross.
No word was spoken throughout that journey. Gilbert felt the restriction, and did not challenge it or seek to overcome it. The girl was naturally silent. She had so much to say in the proper place and at the proper time. He saw the old fear come back to her eyes, was hurt by the unconscious and involuntary shrinking when his hand touched hers.
The carriage was dismissed at King’s Cross. A taxicab was engaged, and they drove to the house in St. John’s Wood. It was empty, the servants had been sent away on a holiday, but it was a perfectly fitted little mansion. There were electric cookers, and every laboursaving appliance the mind of man could devise, or a young man with great expectations and no particular idea of the value of money could acquire.
This was to be one of the joys of the honeymoon, so Gilbert had told himself. She had willingly dispensed with her maid; he was ready to be man-of-all-work, to cook and to serve, leaving the rough work for the two new day servants he had employed to come in in the morning.
Yet it was with no sense of joyfulness that he led her from room to room, showed her the treasures of his household. A sense of apprehension of some coming trouble laid its hand upon his tongue, damped his spirit, and held him in temporary bondage.
The girl was self-possessed. She admired, criticised kindly, and rallied him gently upon his domesticity. But the strain was there all the time; there was a shadow which lay between them.
She went to her room to change. They had arranged to go out to dinner, and this programme they followed. Leslie Frankfort saw them in the dining hall of Princes, and pretended he didn’t know them. It
