Part 10 (1/2)

Then Logan pulled himself together, and attempted to carry Mrs.

Stuart off for the waltz, but for once in her life that lady had lost her head. ”It is shocking!” she said, ”outrageously shocking!

I wonder if they told Mr. McDonald before he married her!” Then looking hurriedly round, she too saw the young husband's face--and knew that they had not.

”Humph! deuced nice kettle of fish--and poor old Charlie has always thought so much of honorable birth.”

Logan thought he spoke in an undertone, but ”poor old Charlie” heard him. He followed his wife and brother across the room. ”Joe,” he said, ”will you see that a trap is called?” Then to Christie, ”Joe will see that you get home all right.” He wheeled on his heel then and left the ball-room.

Joe _did_ see.

He tucked a poor, s.h.i.+vering, pallid little woman into a cab, and wound her bare throat up in the scarlet velvet cloak that was hanging uselessly over her arm. She crouched down beside him, saying, ”I am so cold, Joe; I am so cold,” but she did not seem to know enough to wrap herself up. Joe felt all through this long drive that nothing this side of Heaven would be so good as to die, and he was glad when the little voice at his elbow said, ”What is he so angry at, Joe?”

”I don't know exactly, dear,” he said gently, ”but I think it was what you said about this Indian marriage.”

”But why should I not have said it? Is there anything wrong about it?” she asked pitifully.

”Nothing, that I can see--there was no other way; but Charlie is very angry, and you must be brave and forgiving with him, Christie, dear.”

”But I did never see him like that before, did you?”

”Once.”

”When?”

”Oh, at college, one day, a boy tore his prayer book in half, and threw it into the grate, just to be mean, you know. Our mother had given it to him at his confirmation.”

”And did he look so?”

”About, but it all blew over in a day--Charlie's tempers are short and brisk. Just don't take any notice of him; run off to bed, and he'll have forgotten it by the morning.”

They reached home at last. Christie said goodnight quietly, going directly to her room. Joe went to his room also, filled a pipe and smoked for an hour. Across the pa.s.sage he could hear her slippered feet pacing up and down, up and down the length of her apartment.

There was something panther-like in those restless footfalls, a meaning velvetyness that made him s.h.i.+ver, and again he wished he were dead--or elsewhere.

After a time the hall door opened, and someone came upstairs, along the pa.s.sage, and to the little woman's room. As he entered, she turned and faced him.

”Christie,” he said harshly, ”do you know what you have done?”

”Yes,” taking a step nearer him, her whole soul springing up into her eyes, ”I have angered you, Charlie, and--”

”Angered me? You have disgraced me; and, moreover, you have disgraced yourself and both your parents.”

”_Disgraced_?”

”Yes, _disgraced_; you have literally declared to the whole city that your father and mother were never married, and that you are the child of--what shall we call it--love? certainly not legality.”

Across the hallway sat Joe McDonald, his blood freezing; but it leapt into every vein like fire at the awful anguish in the little voice that cried simply, ”Oh! Charlie!”

”How could you do it, how could you do it, Christie, without shame either for yourself or for me, let alone your parents?”

The voice was like an angry demon's--not a trace was there in it of the yellow-haired, blue-eyed, laughing-lipped boy who had driven away so gaily to the dance five hours before.

”Shame? Why should I be ashamed of the rites of my people any more than you should be ashamed of the customs of yours--of a marriage more sacred and holy than half of your white man's mockeries.”