Part 16 (1/2)
”I did not do more than you did. As I said before, we played the game together. It is but the usual way of a flirting man and woman. We should have each been more on guard.”
The woman was silent for a little time, and it was evident that she was making an effort at self-control. She succeeded. She had half-turned her back to Harlson, and when she again faced him, she had a.s.sumed her dignity.
”You are right, after all,” she said. ”I did not consider your own character well enough. You tire of things. You will tire of the woman you love now. And you will come back to me, just because I have been less sentimental, and, so, less monotonous than some others. Whether or not I shall receive you time will determine. Is that the way you want me to look at it?”
He bowed. ”That is perhaps as good a way as any. It doesn't matter.
Will you shake hands, Ada?”
She reached out her hand listlessly, and he took it. A minute later and he was on the street. And so the last link of one sort with the past was broken. It was long--though he had no concealments from her--before he told Jean of this interview. And then he did not tell the woman's name, nor did she care to know.
CHAPTER XXIV.
AS TO THOSE OTHERS.
Time pa.s.ses, even with an impatient lover, and so there came an end at last to Grant Harlson's season of probation. There was nothing dramatic about the wedding.
To him the ceremony was merely the gaining of the human t.i.tle-deed to the fortune which was his on earth, and to Jean Cornish it was but the giving of herself fully to the man--that which she wished to do with herself. There were few of us present, but we were the two's closest friends. They were a striking pair as they stood together and plighted their faith calmly: he big and strong, almost to the point of burliness, and she slight, sweet and lissom. There was no nervousness apparent in either, perhaps because there was such earnestness. And then he carried her away from us.
They had not been long away, this newly wedded couple, when they returned to the home he had prepared. As he remarked half grimly to me, in comment on lost years, they had met so late in the nesting season that time should not be wasted. Of that home more will be told in other pages, but it is only of the two people I am talking now.
I noted a difference in their way when I first dined with them, which I did, of course, as soon as they had returned. I had thought them very close together before in thought and being, but I saw that there was more. The sweet, sacred intimacy which marriage afforded had given the greater fullness to what had seemed to me already perfect. But I was one with much to learn of many things. And yet these two were to come closer still--closer through a better mutual understanding and new mutual hopes. It was long afterward when I understood.
It was after dinner one day, and in the sitting-room, which was a library as well. They were going out that evening, but it was early still, and he was leaning back in a big chair smoking the post-prandial cigar, and she coiled upon a lower seat very near him, so near that he could put his hand upon her head, and they were talking lightly of many things. She looked up more earnestly at last.
”Will you ever tire of it, Grant?”
He laughed happily.
”Tire of what, Brownie?”
”Of this, of me, and of it all; will you never weary of the quietness of it and want some change? You must care very much, indeed, if you will not.”
He spoke slowly.
”It seems to me that though we were to live each a thousand years, I would never tire of this as it is. But, of course, it will not be just this way. We could not keep it so if we would, and would not if we could.”
”Why should it change?”
He drew her close to him and placed his hand upon her face and kissed her on the forehead.
”I shall be more in the fray again. I must be. You would not have your husband a sluggard among men, and that will sometimes take me from you, though never for long, because I'm afraid I shall be selfish and have you with me when there are long journeys. And it will change, too, you know--because you see, dear, there may be the--the others.
You hope so, with me, do you not?”
Her face remained hidden for a little time. When she raised it, there was a blush upon her cheeks, but her eyes had not the glance he had antic.i.p.ated.
”No!” she said.
He did not reply, because he could not comprehend. He looked at her, astonished, and she broke forth recklessly:
”I love you so, Grant! I love you so! I want you, just you, and no one else. Are we not happy as we are? Are you not satisfied with me, just me? You are like all men! You are selfis.h.!.+ You--oh, love! You love me so--I know that--but you think of me--it seems so, anyhow--as but part of a scheme of life, of the life which will make you happy.