Judge Baxter was happy. He decided at once that his house was not fit for the reception of the fair bride, it must be made so. He took Laurence with him to inspect the house from cellar to garret and unfolded a scheme of complete renovation.
"Women like things bright and cheerful," he said, beaming. "Gay colours and lots of little fixings, instead of this—" and he looked round the chocolate and maroon parlours. "I'll run up to Chicago tomorrow and see what I can find. The wall-papers now—they'll have to be changed. Some light colours—roses, that kind of thing. New carpets. And the furniture—hasn't been touched since I bought the place. Time it was. And we need a piano for Mary—"
"Say, Judge, you mustn't buy out the town," protested Laurence. "We don't want you to go to a lot of expense—"
"Pshaw, pshaw! Don't interfere with me—guess I can do what I like in my own house, can't I? If I want some new furniture, what have you got to say about it? But I tell you, Laurence—suppose you come along with me—you know better than I do what women like. Or look here! Why shouldn't we take Miss Mary?That'sthe thing!"
He glowed with pleasure at this idea.
"I tell you, we three will go up together, say tomorrow morning, and we'll make a day of it, or better, a coupleof days! We'll see the town, have a good dinner, go to the theatre, and Mary can pick out the stuff we want. I'll arrange at the office, and you go along and fix it up with Mary and her people. Tell 'em I'll look after her, and if shedon'tcome I'll buy everything in sight!"
The Judge was accustomed to getting what he wanted. Not considering this threat sufficient, he added a note of pathos.
"Tell her I haven't had a vacation for a coon's age, and if she wants to please an old fellow and give him a good time, she'll come. You're both my guests and I'm going to enjoy myself. Damn it, man, youfetchher. If you don't I'll go after her myself!"
The Judge did enjoy himself. From the train he took a carriage straight to the biggest furniture house on State Street, and there he plunged into a fury of buying. Mary and Laurence stood by, but it turned out that they had very little to say about it. When the Judge found that Mary had no definite ideas about furniture and that she demurred whenever any expensive article was in question, he over-rode her bewildered protests and bought whatever struck his eye. He bought a light carpet with red roses on it for the parlour, a set of shiny mahogany upholstered in flowered brocade, a carved oak set for the dining-room. He bought three cut-glass chandeliers and a grand piano; marble vases, an onyx clock and a service of French china.
It did not take long. He walked rapidly through the room, followed by the salesmen, glancing round with an eagle eye and pointing with his cane to what hewanted. Sometimes he asked Mary's opinion, but she was shy about giving it, and provided a thing was bright enough and costly enough, the Judge was sure she must like it. He discovered that he himself had more taste than he had suspected; he knew a good article from an inferior one in a minute, and he didn't buy any cheap stuff. Everything was handsome.
When they thought he was all through, he beckoned them and announced that now things must be bought fortheirpart of the house, the big rooms upstairs, and these Mary positively must select. But first they would have lunch and take a drive.
The Judge took his party to the best hotel, engaged rooms and ordered an elaborate luncheon, over which he was gay as a boy on a holiday. Then, in an open carriage, they started out to see the city.
They drove through miles of badly paved dusty streets, faced with wooden buildings. The Judge admitted that it was not a beautiful city—business couldn't be beautiful, except to the mind—but it appealed to his imagination.
Its history was romantic, going back into the dim past. Before the whites came, this had been a meeting-place for the Indian tribes; and later for voyageurs and traders. It had been French territory, then English to the end of the Revolutionary War. Its Indian name meant "wild onion"—a racy and flavoursome name, suggesting strength!
"Think of it—twenty-five years ago this city had less than five thousand inhabitants—now it has a quarter of a million! It's growing like a weed!"
They crossed the river which ran through the middle of the city, and the Judge pointed to the thronged wharves where ten thousand vessels arrived in a year and nearly as many cleared, bringing lumber, carrying the yield of the prairie, wheat, corn, and oats. "Chicago might yet have a direct European trade—a ship had sailed from there to Liverpool, with wheat, and three European vessels had sailed to Chicago...."
Built on the flat prairie, on sand and swamp, almost on the level of the lake, nearly the whole city had now been raised a grade of ten feet; an entire business block being raised at one time! With such an energetic and growing population, with its marvellous situation, commanding the lake trade and with all the western territory to draw from, the city had a great future. "Half the country will be tributary to it," said the Judge with glowing eyes....
They drove out along the lake shore, a broad beach of sand and gravel, back of which rolled low sand-dunes. It was a warm June day, and the great inland sea lay calm and blue, with a slight mist on the horizon. The water sparkled in the sun, a slight motion sent wavelets lapping on the sand. No land could be seen across it, yet there was the feeling of land out there just beyond the line of vision. The air that blew over those miles of water was flat, it had an inland flavour.
Here it was not the water that was boundless, but the land. The lake was like a pond—the prairie was like the sea....
Judge Baxter talked on enthusiastically about the future of the city, the vast tide of trade that was boundto pass through this, the heart of the country. Mary, beside him, listened smiling. Laurence, sitting opposite, watching Mary, was preoccupied, hardly spoke at all.
The drive lasted so long that there was no time for further shopping. The Judge said they must dine early, so as to be in time for the theatre. Mary went up to her room, to rest a little and to put on her best dress and bonnet which she had brought carefully enveloped in tissue paper, in a box. The dress was of grey silk, heavy and shining, and the bonnet was white. When she was dressed, she stood looking at herself in a long mirror for some time. The rich silk, hanging in full folds, suited her tall stately figure. Inside the soft airy ruches of the bonnet her bright hair rippled, each red-gold wave exactly in order, making a clear crisp line like metal. Her cheeks were lightly flushed, her grey eyes shining. She smiled reluctantly at herself in the glass. Beauty, she knew, was a vain show, and vanity was a weakness that she hoped was entirely beneath her. Still, one should make a proper appearance, with due regard to decorum; should not appear careless, nor above all eccentric. A lady should look like a lady.
As she was drawing on her white gloves a knock sounded at the door. She went to open it, there stood Laurence.
"Let me come in a minute," he said.
She was startled at his tone, his pale and agitated look. He left the door ajar, with a quick motion he drew her away from it, sat down on the bed, his arms round her waist as she stood before him too astonished to speak.
"Mary! Let us not go back there again till we aremarried! Marry me now, here—tonight, or tomorrow!... Why wait any longer—and then all the fuss about it.... Do, Mary—do this for me, please—"
He looked up at her, pleading, demanding, his eyes gleaming intensely, humble and imperious.
"Sweetheart! Why shouldn't we?... The Judge will be a witness, it will be all right, your parents won't mind very much, will they?... I hate a show wedding anyhow, a lot of people round.... And I don't want to wait any longer, Mary—I want it over and settled, and to be alone with you.... We can stay here a few days.... Do, please, Mary—"
He clasped her tighter and pressed his face against the silken folds of her skirt; drew her down beside him. Mary was thinking, so intently that though she looked straight at him she hardly saw him, did not notice that he was crumpling her dress, her gloves.
"We could send a telegram," he murmured eagerly.
"No, not a telegram, a letter," said Mary, abstractedly.
"Yes, a letter!"
She disengaged herself from his clasp, and he let her go, watching her as she went slowly over to the mirror, and smoothed her dress, set her bonnet straight, began again to draw on her gloves, all with that absent gaze.
"You will, Mary?" he breathed.
She did not answer, hardly heard.
She was thinking that this would be an end for her too of a difficult time. It had been hard for her, with her mother especially, who even now was not resigned and went about with a pale set face.... Her father wasn't happy about it either, nobody was, it wasn't acheerful atmosphere.... They hadn't treated her very well about it. Mr. Robertson too, her pastor, who was to marry them—he had rebuffed her. None of them had smiled on her, had any joy for her....
They would be hurt, of course, her mother would be anyhow. Her mother, she knew, had intended to hold her head high, if the marriage had to be, and to have the customary wedding festivities and not let any outsider know how she felt. But perhaps she would be glad not to have to go through it. Anyhow—
She turned, met Laurence's look of eager suspense and appeal, smiled faintly.
"What an idea!... It's time to go down now—"
"Yes, but—tell me.... Tomorrow?"
He got up and put out his hands to her, grave and tender, as he met her eyes with a new look in them, a kind of timidity, a yielding look. He had not thought she would consent, it had been, he felt, a wild impulse, but behold, she was consenting. Secretly Mary was thrilled by it—it seemed reckless and adventurous to her—an elopement!
"I'll take care of you, Mary," murmured Laurence with passionate tenderness.
She smiled mistily at him.
At dinner she drank a glass of the champagne that Judge Baxter insisted on. The Judge's gaiety and flowery compliments, Laurence's adoring gaze, the novel luxury of the big restaurant and the box afterward at the play—it was like a dream. She did not recognize herself in the person going through this experience—it seemed to be happening to somebody else. That glass of golden wine—never had Mary Lowell tasted anythingof the sort, never had she acted irresponsibly.... But it was delicious not to be Mary Lowell.... To let herself go, for once, to feel this abandonment and not to care whither this soft flowing tide was taking her....
The Judge was thunderstruck, when Laurence told him, late that night.
"The house won't be ready," he murmured feebly.
Laurence had an answer to all his objections. They would stop a few days in the city, then they would go to Mary's parents for a time. The Judge mustn't feel responsibility, nobody would blame him. They just didn't want the fuss of a wedding at home. Mary would write to her parents and it would be all right. In the end, the Judge was persuaded that, if wrong-headed, it was a romantic thing to do, and entered into it with spirit. But he had to have his part in it. A wedding-dinner, in a private room, with an avalanche of flowers. A wedding-gift to the young couple, a complete service of flat silver. And at the ceremony, in the little parlour of a minister whom Laurence had taken at hazard, the Judge, with paternal tears in his eyes, gave the bride away, and kissed her fair cheek.