Part 16 (1/2)

A day or two later Mr. Spillikins was saying, ”I think Mrs. Everleigh must have had great sorrow, don't you? Yesterday she was showing me a photograph of her little boy-she has a little boy you know-”

”Yes, I know,” said Norah. She didn't add that she knew that Mrs. Everleigh had four.

”-and she was saying how awfully rough it is having him always away from her at Dr. Something's academy where he is.”

And very soon after that Mr. Spillikins was saying, with quite a quaver in his voice,

”By Jove! yes, I'm awfully lucky; I never thought for a moment that she'd have me, you know-a woman like her, with so much attention and everything. I can't imagine what she sees in me.”

Which was just as well.

And then Mr. Spillikins checked himself, for he noticed-this was on the verandah in the morning-that Norah had a hat and jacket on and that the motor was rolling towards the door.

”I say,” he said, ”are you going away?”

”Yes, didn't you know?” Norah said. ”I thought you heard them speaking of it at dinner last night. I have to go home; father's alone, you know.”

”Oh, I'm awfully sorry,” said Mr. Spillikins; ”we shan't have any more tennis.”

”Goodbye,” said Norah, and as she said it and put out her hand there were tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g up into her eyes. But Mr. Spillikins, being short of sight, didn't see them.

”Goodbye,” he said.

Then as the motor carried her away he stood for a moment in a sort of reverie. Perhaps certain things that might have been rose unformed and inarticulate before his mind. And then, a voice called from the drawing-room within, in a measured and a.s.sured tone,

”Peter, darling, where are you?”

”Coming,” cried Mr. Spillikins, and he came.

On the second day of the engagement Mrs. Everleigh showed to Peter a little photograph in a brooch.

”This is Gib, my second little boy,” she said.

Mr. Spillikins started to say, ”I didn't know-” and then checked himself and said, ”By Gad! what a fine-looking little chap, eh? I'm awfully fond of boys.”

”Dear little fellow, isn't he?” said Mrs. Everleigh. ”He's really rather taller than that now, because this picture was taken a little while ago.”

And the next day she said, ”This is Willie, my third boy,” and on the day after that she said, ”This is Sib, my youngest boy; I'm sure you'll love him.”

”I'm sure I shall,” said Mr. Spillikins. He loved him already for being the youngest.

And so in the fulness of time-nor was it so very full either, in fact, only about five weeks-Peter Spillikins and Mrs. Everleigh were married in St. Asaph's Church on Plutoria Avenue. And the wedding was one of the most beautiful and sumptuous of the weddings of the September season. There were flowers, and bridesmaids in long veils, and tall ushers in frock-coats, and awnings at the church door, and strings of motors with wedding-favours on imported chauffeurs, and all that goes to invest marriage on Plutoria Avenue with its peculiar sacredness. The face of the young rector, Mr. Fareforth Furlong, wore the added saintliness that springs from a five-hundred dollar fee. The whole town was there, or at least everybody that was anybody; and if there was one person absent, one who sat by herself in the darkened drawing-room of a dull little house on a shabby street, who knew or cared?

So after the ceremony the happy couple-for were they not so?-left for New York. There they spent their honeymoon. They had thought of going-it was Mr. Spillikins's idea-to the coast of Maine. But Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins said that New York was much nicer, so restful, whereas, as everyone knows, the coast of Maine is frightfully noisy.

Moreover, it so happened that before the Everleigh-Spillikinses had been more than four or five days in New York the s.h.i.+p of Captain Cormorant dropped anchor in the Hudson; and when the anchor of that s.h.i.+p was once down it generally stayed there. So the captain was able to take the Everleigh-Spillikinses about in New York, and to give a tea for Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins on the deck of his vessel so that she might meet the officers, and another tea in a private room of a restaurant on Fifth Avenue so that she might meet no one but himself.

And at this tea Captain Cormorant said, among other things, ”Did he kick up rough at all when you told him about the money?”