At the Age of Eve Part 21

"I've been dressed half an hour. Do I please you, Coeur de Lion?"

"You are so entirely perfect that I know now I can never find jewels that will be worthy of you."

"Jewels?"

"Guess what I've been doing this morning!" He had leaned over closer to my chair as he spoke, and he again caught my hand and pressed it.

I smiled and shook my head.

"I've been buying my sweetheart an engagement ring."

"Oh!"

"That's what detained me. I couldn't find a stone that I exactly cared for."

He drew a little brown kid box from his pocket and touched the tiny pearl clasp.

"See if you think this will do," he said, handing me the opened box.

On the rich satin lining lay a big blue diamond; it caught the gleams of morning sunlight to its heart, then sent them back, with a dazzling radiance, to my eyes.

I looked up at him and had begun to speak when there was the swish of skirts at the door and Cousin Eunice came into the room. I closed the box in my hand and listened to what she might say to him in greeting.

"I came to warn you two benighted young people that it is high time for you to start to church, if you are still in the notion of going,"

she said, after she had shaken hands with Richard and remarked upon the beauty of the morning. "You can't rely upon Ann to know anything about church time," she continued, as he wheeled up a chair for her and we all three sat down again. "She hasn't been to church since she was in the infant cla.s.s at Sunday-school."

"Ah! So I shall have missionary work to do--the first thing," he said, answering her light banter. Then, after a moment he reached over and took my hand, which was lying on the arm of my chair, in his. The gesture was infinitely chivalrous and caressing.

"Mrs. Clayborne, Ann has told you of our happiness?"

"Yes. And I congratulate you sincerely." Her blue eyes were suddenly grave and tender. She arose and extended her hand to him in frank fellowship. He towered above her a moment as he gratefully pressed the welcoming hand, then she turned and put her arm around my shoulder.

"Ann is my little sister," she said, looking into his eyes with a steady glance. "You must always be very good to her."

"I expect to be," he answered gravely.

We showed her the ring and she admired its brilliant beauty.

"But, you conceited man," she said, with a really cousinly laugh as she turned upon him, "you must have bought this before she accepted you! She told me that the wonderful event happened only last night!

This is Sunday."

"Oh, I happen to know Harper pretty well," he explained, mentioning the name of the best-known jeweler in the city. "I called him early this morning and he went down and we took a look through the vaults together. This was rather the best stone I could find, so I waited for him to set it for me."

"Well, I must admit that I admire both your taste and your--precipitation," she said, smiling on him in the friendliest fashion.

I had not had time before to give the matter a thought, but it dawned upon me then that n.o.body save my imperial Richard would have had the temerity to call a rich diamond merchant from his warm bed on a Sunday morning and have him go forth with tools in hand to set a jewel.

Surely he could do anything he wished! He possesses an undoubted power over men, and a high-handed, yet charming way of having people do as he desires them to. Cousin Eunice was already showing signs of weakening from her harsh judgment of the earlier morning. I remembered suddenly the slim, satiny horse he was driving the day I first saw him, and how he spoke only a word to her when she became frightened at Alfred's car. She at once obeyed the influence of his voice. Tyrant?

He is no tyrant. He manages to get his way always by being so lovable and so charming that it is a pleasure to give in to him.

"Well, shall we be off to church?" he asked as Cousin Eunice went out into the hall to meet Waterloo, who was just then returning from Sunday-school.

"If you prefer. I always try to take a long walk on Sunday morning. It makes me feel so good and _holy_ somehow!"

He smiled. "And don't you feel that way in church?" he asked.

"No--except when the big pipe-organ is playing. I love the feeling of cathedrals, without any organ, but I know that this is only a revel to the senses, and it seems wicked to go--just for that."

He laughed outright. "So you think that people ought to get spiritual upliftment from going to church, do you?"

"I do. And if they get no such upliftment I think they ought to have respect enough for their Maker to stay away!"

"Their Maker? Are you so old-fashioned as to think that there is much _worship_ in these churches--with their paid singers and their paid preachers and their heedless, gossiping throngs?"

"There is _some_ worship. For the sake of those few I feel that the reverential spirit ought always to be carried there. But I am like you. I scorn hypocrisy. The sight of a notoriously immoral deacon or steward sickens me with church-going for months. So I get my spiritual upliftment from going near to nature's heart. The birds and the bees are not orthodox--neither are they hypocrites."

"Well, you shall show me some of these temples of yours about the week after next, when I have packed you off down home, and have speedily followed you there."

"There are plenty such temples around here," I answered. "We might go to-day."

"Yes, but we are going to church this morning."

"Why? You have just agreed with me that you gain nothing from listening to a man who is paid so much a year to explain to you something of which he knows nothing."

"Good heavens, child! What a sentence from the mouth of a babe! I go to church because it is good form."

"Then you are the one who needs a missionary."

"Well, I'll promise to quit going altogether after we are married. I shall expect you and mother and Evelyn to keep up the appearance of respectability for the family."

"Listen, Richard," I said, standing close to him and lowering my voice so that I might not be overheard. "I may as well tell you now, in the beginning, that I could _never_ be a 'religious' woman the way your mother is. Our ideas on the subject are wholly different. I have a religion, but your conventional orthodoxy has little to do with it.

And I shall not pretend that it has."

"Ann! I believe I have fallen in love with a little reformer. Will you be so good, madam, as to set forth your views?" He spoke in the lightest tone of jest. Evidently he had no idea that a woman possessed such a thing as views.

"Oh, it is a vague sort of belief; a dawning light of faith in the Eternal Wisdom, against which orthodoxy seems like a harsh glare which makes you squint your eyes."

"Upon my word! What would mother say to that?"

"She'll never say anything to it, for I shall never express such a thought to her. It is a useless waste of breath. But, Richard, if you love me, you will leave me untrammeled in such matters."

"My dear, you are to be untrammeled in all matters. My only wish is your happiness. Now run and get your hat."

"I'm not going to church with you for the sake of good form."

"What?"

"My conscience would hurt me all day."

"Of course you are not in earnest," he said, and the smile died away from his lips. "So hurry, dear. We are late already."