Under proper conditions, being wounded in the shoulder may have its pleasant features. They were not so obvious to Monte in the early part of the evening, because he was pretty much befuddled with ether; but sometime before dawn he woke up feeling fairly normal and clear-headed and interested. This was where fifteen years of clean living counted for something. When Marcellin and his assistant had first stripped Monte to the waist the day before, they had paused for a moment to admire what they called his torso. It was not often, in their city practice, that they ran across a man of thirty with muscles as clearly outlined as in an anatomical illustration.
Monte was conscious of a burning pain in his shoulder, and he was not quite certain as to where he was. So he hitched up on one elbow. This caused a shadow to detach itself from the dark at the other end of the room—a shadow that rustled and came toward him. It is small wonder that he was startled.
"Who the deuce are you?" he inquired in plain English.
"Monsieur is not to sit up," the shadow answered in plain French.
Monte repeated his question, this time in French.
"I am the nurse sent here by Dr. Marcellin," she informed him. "Monsieur is not to talk."
She placed her hand below his neck and helped him to settle down again upon his pillow. Then she rustled off again beyond the range of the shaded electric light.
"What happened?" Monte called into the dark.
Then he thought he heard a door open, and further rustling, and a whispered conversation.
"Who's that?" he demanded.
It sounded like a conspiracy of some sort, so he tried again to make his elbow. Mademoiselle appeared promptly, and, again placing her hand beneath his neck, lowered him once more to his pillow.
"Turn up the light, will you?" requested Monte.
"But certainly not," answered the nurse. "Monsieur is to lie very quiet and sleep."
"I can't sleep."
"Perhaps it will help monsieur to be quiet if he knows his fiancée is in the next room."
Momentarily this announcement appeared to have directly the opposite effect.
"My what?" gasped Monte.
"Monsieur's fiancée. With her maid, she is occupying the next apartment in order to be near monsieur. If you are very quiet to-night, it is possible that to-morrow the doctor will permit you to see her."
"Was that she who came in and whispered to you?"
"Yes, monsieur."
Monte remained quiet after that—but he was not sleeping. He was thinking.
In the first place, this was enough to make him recall all that had happened. This led him to speculate on all that might be about to happen—how much he could not at that moment even imagine. Neither line of thought was conducive to sleep.
Marjory was in the next room, awake, and at the sound of his voice had come in. In the dark, even with this great night city of Paris asleep around him, she had come near enough so that he heard the rustle of her skirt and her whispering voice. That was unusual—most unusual—and rather satisfactory. If worse came to worse and he reached a point where it was necessary for him to talk to some one, he could get her in here again in spite of this nurse woman. He had only to call her name. Not that he really had any intention in the world of doing it. The idea rather embarrassed him. He would not know what to say to a young lady at this hour of the night—even Marjory. But there she was—some one from home, some one he knew and who knew him. It was like having Edhart within reach.
In this last week he had sometimes awakened as he was now awake, and the silence had oppressed him. Ordinarily there was nothing morbid about Monte, but Edhart's death and the big empty space that was left all about Nice, the silence where once he had been so sure of hearing Edhart's voice, the ghostly reminders of Edhart in those who clicked about in Edhart's bones without his flesh—all these things had given Monte's thoughts an occasional novel trend.
Once or twice he had gone as far as to picture himself as upon the point of death here in this foreign city. It was a very sad, a melancholy thing to speak about. He might call until he was hoarse, and no one would answer except possibly the night clerk or a gendarme. And they would look upon him only as something of a nuisance. It is really pathetic—the depths of misery into which a healthy man may, in such a mood, plunge himself.
All around him the dark, silent city, asleep save for the night clerks, the gendarmes, the evildoers, and the merrymakers. And these last would only leer at him. If he did not join them, then it was his fault if he lay dying alone.
"Is she in there now?" Monte called to the nurse in the dark.
"Certainly, monsieur. But I thought you were sleeping."
No, he was not sleeping; but he did not mind now the pain in his shoulder. She had announced herself as his fiancée. Well, technically, she was. He had asked her to marry him, and she had accepted. At the time he had not seen much farther ahead than the next few minutes; and even then had not foreseen what was to happen in those few minutes. The proposal had given him his right to talk to Hamilton, and her acceptance—well, it had given Marjory her right to be here.
Curious thing about that code of rights and wrongs! Society was a stickler for form. If either he or Marjory had neglected the preliminaries, then he might have lain here alone for a week, with society shaking its Puritan head. This nurse woman might have come, but she did not count; and, besides, he had to get shot before even she would be allowed.
Now it was all right. It was all right and proper for her, all right and proper for him, all right and proper for society. Not only that, but it was so utterly normal that society would have frowned if she had not hurried to his side in such an emergency. It forced her here, willy-nilly. Perhaps that was the only reason she was here.
Still, he did not like to think that. She was too true blue to quit a friend. It would be more like her to come anyway. He remembered how she had stood by that old aunt to the end. She would be standing by her to-day were she alive. Even Chic, who fulfilled his own obligations to the last word, had sometimes urged her to lead her own life, and she had only smiled. There was man stuff in her.
It showed when she announced to these people her engagement. He did not believe she did that either because it was necessary or proper. She did it because it was the literal truth, and she was not ashamed of the literal truth in anything.
"Is Mademoiselle Stockton sitting up—there in the next room?"
"I do not know," answered the nurse.
"Do you mind finding out for me?"
"If monsieur will promise to sleep after that."
"How can a man promise to sleep?"
Even under normal conditions, that was a foolish thing to promise. But when a man was experiencing brand-new sensations—the sensations of being engaged—it was quite impossible to make such a promise.
"Monsieur can at least promise not to talk."
"I will do that," agreed Monte.
She came back and reported that mademoiselle was sitting up, and begged to present her regards and express the hope that he was resting comfortably.
"Please to tell her I am, and that I hope she will now go to bed," he answered.
Nurse Duval did that, and returned.
"What did she say?" inquired Monte.
"But, monsieur—"
She had no intention of spending the rest of the night as a messenger between those two rooms.
"Very well," submitted Monte. "But you might tell me what she said."
"She said she was not sleepy," answered the nurse.
"I'm glad she's awake," said Monte.
Just because he was awake. In a sense, it gave them this city for themselves. It was as if this immediately became their city. That was not good arithmetic. Assuming that the city contained a population of three millions,—he did not have his Baedeker at hand,—then clearly he could consider only one three millionth part of the city as his. With her awake in the next room, that made only two of them, so that taken collectively they had a right to claim only two three-millionths parts as belonging to them. Yet that was not the way it worked out. As far as he was concerned, the other two millions nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight did not exist.
There was nothing sentimental about this conclusion. He did not think of it as it affected her—merely as it affected him. It gave him rather a comfortable, completed feeling, as if he now had within himself the means for peacefully enjoying life, wherever he might be, even at thirty-two. Under the influence of this soothing thought, he fell asleep again.
After the doctors were through with Monte the next morning, they decided, after a consultation, that there was no apparent reason why, during the day, Miss Stockton, if she desired, should not serve as his nurse while Miss Duval went home to sleep.
"My assistant will come in at least twice," said Dr. Marcellin. "Besides, you have the constitution of a prize-fighter. It might well be possible to place a bullet through the heart of such a man without greatly discommoding him."
He spoke as if with some resentment.
After they had gone out, Marjory came in. She hesitated at the door a moment, perhaps to make sure that he was awake; perhaps to make sure that she herself was awake. Monte, from the bed, could see her better than she could see him. He thought she looked whiter than usual, but she was very beautiful.
There was something about her that distinguished her from other women—from this nurse woman, for example, who was the only other woman with whom it was possible to compare her in a like situation. With one hand resting on the door, her chin well up, she looked more than ever like Her Royal Highness Something or Other. She was dressed in something white and light and fluffy, like the gowns he used to see on Class Day. Around her white throat there was a narrow band of black velvet.
"Good-morning, Marjory," he called.
She came at once to his side, walking graciously, as a princess might walk.
"I did n't know if you were awake," she said.
It was one thing to have her here in the dark, and another to have her here in broad daylight. The sun was streaming in at the windows now, and outside the birds were chattering.
"Did you rest well last night?" she inquired.
"I heard you when you came in and whispered to the nurse woman. It was mighty white of you to come."
"What else could I do?" She seated herself in a chair by his bed.
"Because we are engaged?" he asked.
She smiled a little as he said that.
"Then you have not forgotten?"
"Forgotten!" he exclaimed. "I'm just beginning to realize it."
"I was afraid it might come back to you as a shock, Monte," she said. "But it is very convenient—at just this time."
"I don't know what I should have done without it," he nodded. "It certainly gives a man a comfortable feeling to know—well, just to know there is some one around."
"I'm glad if I've been able to do anything."
"It's a whole lot just having you here," he assured her.
It changed the whole character of this room, for one thing. It ceased to be merely a hotel room—merely number fifty-four attached with a big brass star to a key. It was more like a room in the Hôtel des Roses, which was the nearest to home of any place Monte had found in a decade. It was as if when she came in she completely refurnished it with little things with which he was familiar. Edhart always used to place flowers in his apartment; and it was like that.
"The only bother with the arrangement," he said, looking serious, "is that it takes your time. Ought n't you to be at Julien's this morning?"
She had forgotten about Julien's. Yet for the last two years it had been the very center of her own individual life. Now the crowded studio, the smell of turpentine, the odd cosmopolitan gathering of fellow students, the little pangs following the bitter criticisms of the master, receded into the background until they became as a dream of long ago.
"I don't think I shall ever go to Julien's again," she answered.
"But look here—that won't do," he objected. "If I'm to interfere with all your plans—"
"It isn't that, Monte," she assured him. "Ever since I came back this last time, I knew I did n't belong there. When Aunt Kitty was alive it was all the opportunity I had; but now—" She paused.
"Well?"
"I have my hands full with you until you get out again," she answered lightly.
"That's what I object to," he said; "If being engaged is going to pin you down, then I don't think you ought to be engaged. You've had enough of that in your life."
The curious feature of her present position was that she had no sense of being pinned down. She had thought of this in the night. She had never felt freer in her life. Within a few hours of her engagement she had been able to do exactly what she wished to do without a single qualm of conscience. She had been able to come here and look after him in this emergency. She would have done this anyway, but she knew how Marcellin and his assistant and even Nurse Duval would have made her pay for her act—an act based upon nothing but decent loyalty and honest responsibility. Raised eyebrows—gossip in the air—covert smiles—the whole detestable atmosphere of intrigue with which they would have surrounded her, had vanished as by a spell before the magic word fiancée. She was breathing air like that upon the mountain-tops. It was sweet and clean and bracing.
"Monte," she said, "I'm doing at this moment just exactly what I want to do; and you can't understand what a treat that is, because you've always done just exactly as you wanted. I 'm sure I 'm entirely selfish about this, because—because I'm not making any sacrifice. You can't understand that, either, Monte,—so please don't try. I think we'd better not talk any more about it. Can't we just let it go on as it is a little while?"
"It suits me," smiled Monte. "So maybe I'm selfish, too."
"Maybe," she nodded. "Now I'll see about your breakfast. The doctor told me just what you must have."
So she went out—moving away like a vision in dainty white across the room and out the door. A few minutes later she was back again with a vase of red roses, which she arranged upon the table where he could see them.
Monte's recovery was rapid—in many ways more rapid than he desired. In a few days Nurse Duval disappeared, and in a few days more Monte was able to dress himself with the help of the hotel valet, and sit by the window while Marjory read to him. Half the time he gave no heed to what she was reading, but that did not detract from his pleasure in the slightest. He liked the sound of her voice, and liked the idea of sitting opposite her.
Her eyes were always interesting when she read. For then she forgot about them and let them have their own way—now to light with a smile, now to darken with disapproval, and sometimes to grow very tender, as the story she happened to be reading dictated.
This was luxury such as Monte had never known, and for more than ten years now he had ordered of the world its choicest in the way of luxury.
At his New York club the experience of many, many years in catering to man comfort was placed at his disposal. As far as possible, every desire was anticipated, so that little more effort was required of him than merely to furnish the desires. In a house where no limit whatever had been set upon the expense, a hundred lackeys stood ready to jump if a man as much as raised an eyebrow. And they understood, those fellows, what a man needs—from the chef who searched the markets of the world to satisfy tender tastes, to the doorman who acquainted himself with the names of the members and their personal idiosyncrasies.
That same service was furnished him, if to a more limited extent, on the transatlantic liners, where Monte's name upon the passenger list was immediately passed down the line with the word that he must have the best. At Davos his needs were anticipated a week in advance; at Nice there had been Edhart, who added his smiling self to everything else.
But no one at his club, on the boat, or at Davos—not even Edhart—had given him this: this being the somewhat vague word he used to describe what he was now enjoying as Marjory sat by the window reading to him. It had nothing to do with being read aloud to. He could at any time have summoned a valet to do that, and in five minutes would have felt like throwing the book—any book—at the valet's head. It had nothing to do with the mere fact that she was a woman. Nurse Duval could not have taken her place. Kind as she had been, he was heartily bored with her before she left.
It would seem, then, that in some mysterious way he derived his pleasure from Marjory herself. But, if so, then she had gone farther than all those who made it their life-work to see that man was comfortable; for they satisfied only existing wants, while she created a new one. Whenever she left the room he was conscious of this want.
Yet, when Monte faced the issue squarely and asked himself if this were not a symptom of being in love, he answered it as fairly as he could out of an experience that covered Chic Warren's pre-nuptial brain-storms; a close observation of several dozen honeymoon couples on shipboard, to say nothing of many incipient cases which started there; and, finally, the case of Teddy Hamilton.
The leading feature of all those distressing examples seemed to indicate that, while theoretically the man was in an ideal state of blissful ecstasy, he was, practically, in a condition bordering on madness. At the very moment he was supposed to be happy, he was about half the time most miserable. Even at its best, it did not make for comfort. Poor Chic ran the gamut every week from hell to heaven. It was with a sigh of relief that Monte was able to answer his own question conscientiously in the negative. It was just because he was able to retain the use of his faculties that he was able to enjoy the situation.
Monte liked to consider himself thoroughly normal in everything. As far as he had any theory of life, it was based upon the wisdom of keeping cool—of keeping normal. To get the utmost out of every day, this was necessary. It was not the man who drank too much who enjoyed his wine: it was the man who drank little. That was true of everything. If Hamilton had only kept his head—well, after all, Monte was indebted to Hamilton for not having kept his head.
Monte was not in love: that was certain. Marjory was not in love: that also was certain. This was why he was able to light his cigarette, lean back his head on the pillow she arranged, and drift into a state of dreamy content as she read to him. This happy arrangement might go on forever except that, in the course of time, his shoulder was bound to heal. And then—he knew well enough that old Dame Society was even at the end of these first ten days beginning to fidget. He knew that Marjory knew it, too. It began the day Dr. Marcellin advised him to take a walk in the Champs Élysées.
He was perfectly willing to do that. It was beautiful out there. They sat down at one of the little iron tables—the little tables were so warm and sociable now—and beneath the whispering trees sipped their café au lait. But the fact that he was able to get out of his room seemed to make a difference in their thoughts. It was as if his status had changed. It was as if those who passed him, with a glance at his arm in its sling, stopped to tell him so.
It was none of their business, at that. It would have been sheer presumption of them to have butted into any of the other affairs of his life: whether he was losing money or making money; whether he was going to England or to Spain, or going to remain where he was; whether he preferred chops for breakfast, or bread and coffee. Theoretically, then, it was sheer presumption for them to interest themselves in the question of whether he was an invalid confined to his room, or a convalescent able to get out, or a man wholly recovered.
Yet he knew that, with every passing day that he came out into the sunshine, these same people were managing to make Marjory's position more and more delicate. It became increasingly less comfortable for her and for him when they returned to the hotel.
Therefore he was not greatly surprised when she remarked one morning:—
"Monte, I've been thinking over where I shall go, and I 've about decided to go to Étois."
"When?" he asked.
"Very soon—before the end of the week, anyway."
"But look here!" he protested. "What am I going to do?"
"I don't know," she smiled. "But one thing is certain: you can't play sick very much longer."
"The doctor says it will be another two weeks before my arm is out of the sling."
"Even so, the rest of you is well. There is n't much excuse for my bringing in your breakfasts, Monte."
"Do you mind doing it?"
"No."
"Who is to tie on this silk handkerchief?" He wore a black silk handkerchief over his bandages, which she always adjusted for him.
She met his eyes a moment, and smiled again.
"I'm going to Étois," she said. "I think I shall get a little villa there and stay all summer."
"Then," he declared, "I think I shall go to Étois myself."
"I 'm afraid you must n't."
"But the doctor says I must n't play golf for six months. What do you think I'm going to do with myself until then?"
"There's all the rest of the world," she suggested.
Monte frowned.
"Are you going to break our engagement, then?"
"It has served its purpose, hasn't it?" she asked.
"Up to now," he admitted. "But you say it can't go any farther."
"No, Monte."
The next suggestion that leaped into Monte's mind was obvious enough, yet he paused a moment before voicing it. Perhaps even then he would not have found the courage had he not been rather panic-stricken. He had exactly the same feeling, when he thought of her in Étois, that he had when he thought of Edhart in Paradise. It started as resentment, but ended in a slate-gray loneliness.
He could imagine himself as sitting here alone at one of these little iron tables, and decidedly it was not pleasant. When he pictured himself as returning to his room in the hotel and to the company of the hotel valet, it put him in a mood that augured ill for the valet.
It would have been bad enough had he been able to resume his normal schedule and fill his time with golf; but, with even that relaxation denied him, such a situation as she proposed was impossible. For the present, at any rate, she was absolutely indispensable. She ought to know that a valet could not adjust a silk handkerchief properly, and that without this he could not even go upon the street. And who would read to him from the American papers?
There was no further excuse, she said, for her to bring in his breakfasts, but if she did not sit opposite him at breakfast, what in thunder was the use of eating breakfast? If she had not begun breakfasting with him, then he would never have known the difference. But she had begun it; she had first suggested it. And now she calmly proposed turning him over to a valet.
"Marjory," he said, "didn't I ask you to marry me?"
She nodded.
"That was necessary in order that we might be engaged," she reminded him.
"Exactly," he agreed. "Now there seems to be only one way that we may keep right on being engaged."
"I don't see that, Monte," she answered. "We may keep on being engaged as long as we please, may n't we?"
"It seems not. That is, there is n't much sense in it if it won't let me go to Étois with you."
"Of course you can't do that."
"And yet," he said, "if we were married I could go, couldn't I?"
"Why—er—yes," she faltered; "I suppose so."
"Then," he said, "why don't we get married?"
She did not turn away her head. She lifted her dark eyes to his.
"Just what do you mean, Monte?" she demanded.
"I mean," he said uneasily, "that we should get married just so that we can go on—as we have been these last ten days. Really, we'll still only be engaged, but no one need know that. Besides, no one will care, if we're married."
He gained confidence as he went on, though he was somewhat afraid of the wonder in her eyes.
"People don't care anything more about you after you're married," he said. "They just let you drop as if you were done for. It's a queer thing, but they do. Why, if we were married we could sit here all day and no one would give us a second glance. We could have breakfast together as often as we wished, and no one would care a hang. I've seen it done. We could go to Étois together, and I could pay for half the villa and you could pay for half. You can bring Marie, and we can stay as long as we wish without having any one turn an eye."
He was growing enthusiastic now.
"There will be nothing to prevent you from doing just as you wish. You can paint all day if you want. You can paint yards of things—olive trees and sky and rocks. There are lots of them around Étois. And I—"
"Yes," she interrupted; "what can you do, Monte?"
"I can watch you paint," he answered. "Or I can walk. Or I can—oh, there'll be plenty for me to do. If we tire of Étois we can move somewhere else. If we tire of each other's company, why, we can each go somewhere else. It's simple, is n't it? We can both do just as we please, can't we? There won't be a living soul with the right to open his head to us. Do you get that? Why, even if you want to go off by yourself, with Mrs. in front of your name they'll let you alone."
At first she had been surprised, then she had been amused, but now she was thinking.
"It's queer, is n't it, Monte, that it should be like that?"
"It's the way it is. It makes everything simple and puts the whole matter up to us."
"Yes," she admitted thoughtfully.
"Of course," he said, "I'm assuming you don't mind having me around quite a lot."
"No, I don't mind that," she assured him. "But I 'm wondering if you'll mind—having me around?"
"I did n't realize until this last week how—well, how comfortable it was having you around," he confessed.
She glanced up.
"Yes," she said, "that's the word. I think we've made each other comfortable. After all—that's something."
"It's a whole lot."
"And it need n't ever be anything else, need it?"
"Certainly not," he declared. "That would spoil everything. That's what we're trying to avoid."
To his surprise, she suddenly rose as if to leave.
"Look here!" he exclaimed. "Can't we settle this right now—so that we won't have to worry about it?"
He disliked having anything left to worry about.
"I should think the least you'd expect of me would be to think it over," she answered.
"It would be so much simpler just to go ahead," he declared.
There seemed to be no apparent reason in the world why she should not assent to Monte's proposal. In and of itself, the arrangement offered her exactly what she craved—the widest possible freedom to lead her own life without let or hindrance from any one, combined with the least possible responsibility. As far as she could see, it would remove once and for all the single fretting annoyance that, so far, had disarranged all her plans.
Monte's argument was sound. Once she was married, the world of men would let her alone. So, too, would the world of women. She could face them both with a challenge to dispute her privileges. All this she would receive without any of the obligations with which most women pay so heavily for their release from the bondage in which they are held until married. For they pay even more when they love—pay the more, in a way, the more they love. It cannot be helped.
She was thinking of the Warrens—the same Warrens Monte had visited when Chic, Junior had the whooping cough. She had been there when Chic, Junior was born. Marion had wanted her near—in the next room. She had learned then how they pay—these women who love.
She had been there at other times—less dramatic times. It was just the same. From the moment Marion awoke in the morning until she sank wearily into her bed at night, her time, her thought, her heart, her soul almost, was claimed by some one else. She gave, gave, until nothing was left for herself.
Marjory, in her lesser way, had done much the same—so she knew the cost. It was rare when she had been able to leave her aunt for a whole day and night. Year after year, she too had awakened in the morning to her tasks for another—for this woman who had demanded them as her right. She too had given her time, her thought, her soul, almost, to another. If she had not given her heart, it was perhaps because it was not asked; perhaps, again, it was because she had no heart to give.
Sometimes, in that strange, emotionless existence she had lived so long where duty took the place of love, she had wondered about that. If she had a heart, it never beat any faster to let her know she had it.
She paid her debt of duty in full—paid until her release came. In the final two weeks of her aunt's life she had never left her side. Patiently, steadfastly, she helped with all there was in her to fight that last fight. When it was over, she did not break down, as the doctors predicted. She went to bed and slept forty-eight hours, and awoke ten years younger.
She awoke as one out of bondage, and stared with keen, eager eyes at a new world. For a few weeks she had twenty-four hours a day of her own. Then Peter had come, and others had come, and finally Teddy had come. They wanted to take from her that which she had just gained—each in his own fashion.
"Give us of yourself," they pleaded. "Begin again your sacrifices."
Peter put it best, even though he did not say much. But she had only to look in his eyes and read his proposal.
"Come with me and stand by my side while I carve my career," was what his eyes said. "I'll love you and make you love me as Marion loves. You 'll begin the day with me, and you 'll guard my home while I 'm gone until night, and you'll share my honors and my disappointments, and perhaps a time will come when Marion will stand in the next room, as once you stood in the next room. Then—"
It was at this point she drew back. Then her soul would go out into the new-born soul, and after that she would only live and breathe and hope through that other. When Marion laughed and said that she was as she was because she did not know, Marion was wrong. It was because she did know—because she knew how madly and irrevocably she would give, if ever she gave again. There would be nothing left for herself at all. It would be as if she had died.
She did not wish to give like that. She wished to live a little. She wished to be herself a little—herself as she now was. She wished to get back some of those years between seventeen and twenty-seven—taste the world as it was then.
What Teddy offered was different. Something was there that even Peter did not have—something that made her catch her breath once or twice when he sang to her like a white-robed choir-boy. It was as if he asked her to take his hand and jump with him into a white-hot flame. He carried her farther back in her passions than Peter did—back to seventeen, back to the primitive, elemental part of her. He really made her heart beat. But on guard within her stood the older woman, and she could not move.
Now came Monte—asking nothing. He asked nothing because he wished to give nothing. She was under no illusion about that. There was not anything idealistic about Monte. This was to be purely an arrangement for their mutual comfort. They were to be companions on an indefinite tour of the world—each paying his own bills.
At thirty-two he needed a comrade of some sort, and in his turn he offered himself as an escort. She found no apparent reason, then, even when she had spent half the night getting as far as this, why she should not immediately accept his proposal. Yet she still hesitated.
It was not that she did not trust Monte. Not the slightest doubt in the world existed in her mind about that. She would trust him farther than she would even Peter—trust him farther than any man she had ever met. He was four-square, and she knew it. Perhaps it was a curious suggestion—it was just because of this that she hesitated.
In a way, she was considering Monte. She did not like to help him give up responsibilities that might be good for him. She was somewhat disappointed that he was willing to give them up. He did not have the excuse she had—years of self-sacrifice. He had been free all his life to indulge himself, and he had done so. He had never known a care, never known a heartache. Having money, he had used it decently, so that he had avoided even the compensating curse that is supposed to come with money.
She knew there was a lot to Monte. She had sensed that from the first. He had proved it in the last two weeks. It only needed some one to bring it out, and he would average high. Love might do it—the same white-hot love that had driven Teddy mad.
But that was what he was avoiding, just as she was. Well, what of it? If one did not reach the heights, then one did not sound the depths. After all, it was not within her province to direct Monte's life. She was selfish—she had warned him of that. He was selfish—and had warned her.
Yet, as she lay there in her bed, she felt that she was about to give up something forever, and that Monte was about to give up something forever. It is one thing not to want something, and another to make an irrevocable decision never to have it. Also, it is one thing to fret one's self into an unnecessary panic over a problem at night, and another to handle it lightly in the balmy sunshine of a Parisian springtime morning.
Monte had risen early and gone out and bought her violets again. When she came in, he handed them to her, and she buried her face in their dewy fragrance. It was good to have some one think of just such little attentions. Then, too, his boyish enthusiasm swept her off her guard. He was so eager and light-hearted this morning that she found herself breaking into a laugh. She was still laughing when he brought back to her last night's discussion.
"Well, have you decided to marry me?" he demanded.
She shook her head, her face still buried in the violets.
"What's worrying you about it?" he asked.
"You, Monte," she answered.
"I? Well, that isn't much. I looked up the time-tables, and we could take the six-ten to-night if you were ready."
"I could n't possibly be ready," she replied decidedly.
"To-morrow, then?"
When he insisted upon being definite, the proposition sounded a great deal more absurd than when he allowed it to be indefinite. She was still hesitating when Marie appeared.
"A telephone for mademoiselle," she announced.
Monte heard her startled exclamation from the next room. He hurried to the door. She saw him, and, placing her hand over the telephone, turned excitedly.
"It's Teddy again," she trembled.
"Let me talk to him," he commanded.
"He says he does n't believe in our—our engagement."
"We're to be married to-morrow?" he asked quickly.
"We're to be married to-morrow?""We're to be married to-morrow?"
"We're to be married to-morrow?""We're to be married to-morrow?"
"Oh!"
"It's the only way to get rid of him."
"Then—"
"To-morrow?"
Catching her breath, she nodded.
He took the receiver.
"This is Covington," he said. "Miss Stockton and I are to be married to-morrow. Get that?… Well, keep hold of it, because the moment I 'm her husband—"
Following an oath at the other end, Monte heard the click of the receiver as it was snapped up.
"That settles it very nicely," he smiled.
Marjory was to be married on June eighteenth, at eleven o'clock, in the chapel of the English Congregational Church. At ten o'clock of that day she was in her room before the mirror, trying to account for her heightened color. Marie had just left her in despair and bewilderment, after trying to make her look as bridelike as possible when she did not wish to look bridelike. Marie had wished to do her hair in some absurd new fashion for the occasion.
"But, Marie," she had explained, "nothing is to be changed. Therefore why should I change my appearance?"
"Mademoiselle to be a bride—and nothing changed?" Marie had cried.
"Nothing about me; nothing about Mr. Covington. We are merely to be married, that is all—as a matter of convenience."
"Mademoiselle will see," Marie had answered cryptically.
"You will see yourself," Marjory had laughed.
Eh bien! something was changed already, as she had only to look in the mirror to observe. There was a deep flush upon her cheeks and her eyes did not look quite natural. She saw, and seeing only made it worse. Manifestly it was absurd of her to become excited now over a matter that up to this point she had been able to handle so reasonably. It was scarcely loyal to Monte. He had a right to expect her to be more sensible.
He had put it well last night when he had remarked that for her to go to a chapel to be married was no more serious than to go to an embassy for a passport. She was merely to share with him the freedom that was his as a birthright of his sex. In no other respect whatever was she to be under any obligations to him. With ample means of her own, he was simply giving her an opportunity to enjoy them unmolested—a privilege which the world denied her as long as she remained unmarried. In no way was he to be responsible for her or to her. He understood this fully, and it was exactly what he himself desired.
She, in return for this privilege, was to make herself as entertaining a traveling companion as possible. She was to be what she had been these last few weeks.
Neither was making any sacrifice. That was precisely what they were avoiding. That was the beauty of the arrangement. Instead of multiplying cares and responsibilities, as ordinary folk did,—thereby defeating the very object for which they married, a fuller and wider freedom,—each was to do away with the few they already had as individuals.
Therefore it seemed scarcely decent for Marie to speak of her as a bride. Perhaps that accounted for the color. No sentiment was involved here. This was what made the arrangement possible. Sentiment involved caring; and, as Monte had once said, "It's the caring that seems to make the trouble." That was the trouble with the Warrens. How she cared—from morning till night, with her whole heart and soul in a flutter—for Chic and the children. In a different way, Marjory supposed, Teddy cared. This was the one thing that made him so impossible. In another way, Peter Noyes cared.
She gave a quick start as she thought of Peter Noyes. She turned away from the mirror as if—as if ashamed. She sprang to her feet, with an odd, tense expression about her mouth. It was as if she were looking into his dark, earnest eyes. Peter had always been so intensely in earnest about everything. In college he had worked himself thin to lead his class. In the law school he had graduated among the first five, though he came out almost half blind. His record, however, had won for him a place with a leading law firm in New York, where in his earnest way he was already making himself felt. It was just this quality that had frightened her. He had made love to her with his lips set as if love were some great responsibility. He had talked of duty and the joy of sacrifice until she had run away from him.
That had been her privilege. That had been her right. She had been under no obligation to him then; she was under no obligation to him now. Her life was hers, to do with as she saw fit. He had no business to intrude himself, at this of all times, upon her.
Not daring to look in the mirror again, she called Marie to adjust her hat and veil.
"It is half past ten, Marie," she announced nervously. "I—I think Monsieur Covington must be waiting for us."
"Yes, mademoiselle."
Her ears caught at the word.
"Marie."
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"I wish—even after this—to have you always address me as mademoiselle."
"But that—"
"It is my wish."