A Husband by Proxy Part 2

"Oh!" said he. "And, in case of necessity, how should we prove it?"

"By my wedding certificate," she told him calmly.

His astonishment increased.

"Then you were actually married, over a month ago?"

"I have the certificate. Isn't that sufficient?" she replied evasively.

"Well--I suppose it is--for this sort of an arrangement," he agreed.

"Of course some man's name must appear in the doc.u.ment. I should be obliged, I presume, to adopt his name as part of the arrangement?"

"Certainly," she said. "I told you I came into your office because your name is Jerold."

"Exactly," he mused. "The name I'd a.s.sume is Jerold Fairfax?"

She nodded, watching him keenly.

"It's a good enough name," said Garrison.

He paced up and down the floor in silence a number of times. Mrs.

Fairfax watched him in apparent calm.

"This is a great temptation," he admitted. "I should like to earn the fee you have mentioned, Miss Booth--Mrs. Fairfax, but----"

He halted.

"Well?"

"I don't exactly like the look of it, to be frank," he confessed. "I don't know you, and you don't know me. I am not informed whether you are really married or not. If you are, and the man---- You have no desire to enlighten me on these matters. Can you tell me why you wish to pretend that I am your husband?"

"I do not wish to discuss that aspect of the arrangement at present,"

she said. "It is purely a business proposition that should last no more than a month or two at most, and then terminate forever. I would prefer to have you remain out of town as much as possible."

"A great many haphazard deductions present themselves to my mind," he said, "but all are doubtless inaccurate. I have no morbid curiosity concerning your affairs, but this thing would involve me almost as much as yourself, by its very nature."

His brows were knitted in indecision.

There was silence again between them. His visitor presently said:

"If I could offer you more than the five hundred dollars, I would gladly do so."

"Oh, the fee is large enough, for up to date I have had no employment or even a prospect of work," said Garrison. "I hope you will not be offended when I say that I have recently become a cautious man."

"I know how strange it appears for me to come here with this extraordinary request," agreed Mrs. Fairfax. "I hardly know how I have done so. But there was no one to help me. I hope you will not consider the matter for another moment if you feel that either of us cannot trust the other. In a way, I am placing my honor in your keeping far more than you are placing yourself in charge of mine."

Garrison looked at her steadily, and something akin to sympathy--something that burned like wine of romance in his blood--with zest of adventure and a surge of generosity toward this unknown girl--tingled in all his being. Something in her helplessness appealed to his innate chivalry.

Calmly, however, he took a new estimate of her character, notwithstanding the fact that his first, most reliable impression had been entirely in her favor.

"Well," he said, after a moment, "it's a blind game for me, but I think I'll accept your offer. When do you wish me to begin my services?"

"I should like to notify my lawyer as soon as possible," answered Mrs.

Fairfax, frankly relieved by his decision. "He may regard the fact that he was not sooner notified as a little peculiar."

"Practically you wish me to a.s.sume my role at once," commented Garrison. "What is your lawyer's name?"

"Mr. Stephen Trowbridge."

Garrison took up that much-addressed letter, returned by the post, and pa.s.sed it across the table. The one fairly legible line on its surface read:

STEPHEN TROWBRIDGE, ESQ.

"I think that must be the same individual," he said. "I sent out announcements of my business and presence here to nearly every lawyer in the State. This envelope has been readdressed, as you observe, but it has never reached its destination. Is that your man?"

Mrs. Fairfax examined the missive.

"Yes," she said, "I think so. Do you wish his present address?"

"If you please," answered Garrison. "I shall take the liberty of steaming this open and removing its contents, after which I will place an antedated letter or notification of the--our marriage--written by yourself--in the envelope, redirect it, and send it along. It will finally land in the hands of your lawyer with its tardiness very naturally explained."

"You mean the notification will appear as if misdirected originally,"

said Dorothy. "An excellent idea."

"Perhaps you will compose the note at once," said Garrison, pushing paper, pen, and ink across the desk. "You may leave the rest, with the address, to me."

His visitor hesitated for a moment, as if her decision wavered in this vital moment of plunging into unknown fates, but she took up the pen and wrote the note and address with commendable brevity.

Garrison was walking up and down the office.

"The next step----" he started to say, but his visitor interrupted.

"Isn't this the only step necessary to take until something arises making others expedient?"

"There is one slight thing remaining," he answered, taking up her card.

"You are in a private residence?"

"Yes. The caretaker, a woman, is always there."

"Have you acquainted her with the fact of your marriage?"

"Certainly. She is an English servant. She asks no questions. But I told her my husband is away from town and will be absent almost constantly for the next two or three months."

Garrison slightly elevated his brows, in acknowledgment of the thoroughness of her arrangements.

"I have never attempted much acting--a little at private theatricals,"

he told her; "but of course we shall both be obliged to play this little domestic comedy with some degree of art."