Part 39 (1/2)
She had the further satisfaction of seeing a brief flash of surprise and disappointment in Burleigh's eyes as he came forward to greet her; and, indeed, the gown seemed to depress the company for the entire evening. Betty tried to rattle on gayly, but the painful certainty that she looked thirty-five (perhaps more), and that Burleigh saw it, and her mother (who was visibly depressed) saw it, and the butler and the footman (both of whom, she knew through Leontine, admired her extravagantly) saw it, dashed her spirits to zero, and she fell into an unreasoning rage with Senator North.
”I am going to New York to-morrow, and you are not to follow me,” she said with a final effort at playfulness. ”I have been at such a nervous strain over this wretched war that I must be frivolous and feminine for two whole weeks--and what so serious as being engaged?”
Burleigh sighed. His spirits were unaccountably low. He had forgotten his country for an entire day, and rushed up to the house ten minutes before the appointed hour, his spirits as high as a boy's on his way to the cricket field. But his apple had turned to ashes in a funereal gown, and there seemed no colour about it anywhere.
”Of course you want a change,” he said, ”but I hope you will write to me.”
”I'll write you a little note every day,” she said with sudden contrition. ”I know I'll feel--and look ever so much better in a few days.”
”There!” she thought with a sigh, ”I've made this wretched sacrifice for nothing, and I'll never forget how I'm looking at the present moment, to my dying day. I know I'll wear my most distracting gown the next time he comes. Well, what difference? I've got to marry him, anyhow.”
She shook hands cordially with him when he rose to go, an hour later, but she did not leave her mother's side. He did not attempt to smile, but shook hands silently with both and left the room as rapidly as dignity would permit.
Mrs. Madison put her handkerchief to her eyes and burst into tears.
”Poor dear man!” she exclaimed. ”I felt exactly as if we were having our last dinner together before he went off to the war to get killed. I never spent such a dismal evening in my life. And what on earth made you put on that horrid gown? You look a fright--you almost look older than he does.”
”Don't turn the knife round, please. I'm rather sorry, to tell the truth, but I didn't want him to be too overjoyed. I couldn't have stood it.”
”Are you sorry that you have engaged yourself to him?”
”No, I am glad--very glad.” But she said it without enthusiasm. When she went up to her room, she presented the black gown to Leontine and sent her to bed. Then she put on a peignoir of pink silk and lace and examined herself in the mirror. She looked fifteen years younger and wholly charming; there was no doubt of it.
XVII
The next day, before starting for New York, she wrote a note to Senator North:--
I am going to marry Robert Burleigh. On Tuesday morning I almost went to your house--to bring you back with me here. I came to my senses in time; but I might not again. I want you to understand.
I wish he were not on the winning side. But he is the only man I can even think of marrying.
I do not think this much is disloyal to him. But I will not say other things. B. M.
Burleigh came to the train to see her off, and Betty looked so charming in her rich brown travelling frock and little turban, and smiled so gayly upon him, that his heavy spirit lifted its wings and he begged to be allowed to go to New York on Sat.u.r.day. But to this she would not listen, and he was forced to content himself with making elaborate preparations for her comfort in the little drawing-room, and buying a copy of every paper and magazine the newsboy had on sale.
”I am sure he will make an ideal husband,” said Mrs. Madison, as she waved her hand to him from the window. ”He certainly is very much of a man,” admitted Betty, ”but what on earth are we to do with all these papers? I haven't room to turn round.”
The excitement in Was.h.i.+ngton, great as it was, had been mostly within doors; in New York it appeared to be entirely in the streets, if one excepted the corridors of the hotels. The population, still pale and nervously talkative, surged up and down the sidewalks. On the morrow the city put forth her hundred thousand flags. The very air seemed to turn to stars and stripes.
The Madisons went to the Waldorf-Astoria, and in its refres.h.i.+ng solitudes felt for the first time in months that they must go in search of excitement if they wanted it; none would reach them here.
”Now that the war is declared, I am sorry;” admitted Mrs. Madison, ”for so many Americans will be killed.”
”Instead of Cubans. I've done with the war. I won't even regret.”
For three days Betty shopped furiously, or held long consultations with her dressmaker. On Sunday, after church, she read to her mother, but refused to discuss her engagement, and on Monday she resumed her shopping. She wrote to Burleigh immediately after breakfast every morning, then dismissed him from her mind for twenty-four hours.
The beautiful spring fabrics were in the shops, and she bought so many things she did not want, even for a trousseau, that she wondered if Mrs. Mudd would accept a trunk full of ”things.” She envied Mrs. Mudd, and would find a contradictory pleasure in making her happy. Miss Trumbull never had manifested any false pride, and matrimony had altered her little in other ways.