Phases of an Inferior Planet Part 17

But Claude Nevins had annoyed him, and he spoke irritably.

"I wish you would have nothing to do with that fellow Nevins," he said.

"Why, what has he done?"

"Done? Why, he's an a.s.s--a consummate a.s.s! He told me he had his eye on you!"

Mariana's laugh pealed out. She raised her hand and brushed the heavy hair from his forehead. Then she tried to brush the lines from his brow, but they would not go.

"Why, he's going to give me a supper the night before our marriage," she said; "that is, they all are--Mr. Ardly, Mr. Sellars, and the rest. They made a pot of money for it, and each one of them contributed a share, and it is quite a large pot. We are to have champagne, and I am to sing, and so will Mr. Nevins. I wanted them to ask you, but Mr. Nevins said you'd be a damper, and Mr. Ardly said you would be bored."

"Probably," interpolated Anthony.

"But I insisted I wanted you, so Mr. Ardly said they would have to have you, and Mr. Nevins said they'd have Mr. Paul, if I made a point of it; but they thought I might give them one jolly evening before settling down, so I said I would."

"You will do nothing of the kind," retorted Algarcife.

"But they are so anxious. It will be such a dreadful disappointment to them."

"I will not have it."

"But I've done it before."

"Don't tell me of it. You want to go, and without me?"

"Of course I'd rather you should be there, but it is cruel to disappoint them," Mariana objected, "when they have made such a nice pot of money."

"But I do not like it," said Anthony.

Mariana laughed into his eyes. "Then you sha'n't have it," she said, and leaned against the railing and touched his arm with her fingers. "Say you love me, and I will not go," she added.

Anthony did not touch the hand that lay upon his arm. His mood was too deep for caresses.

"If you knew how I love you," he said, slowly--"if you only knew! There is no happiness in it; it is agony. I am afraid--afraid for the first time in my life--afraid of losing you."

"You shall never lose me."

"It is a horrible thing, this fear--this fear for something outside of yourself!" He spoke with a sudden, half-fierce possession. "You are mine," he said, "and you love me!"

Mariana pressed closer to his side. "If I had not come," she began, softly, "you would have read and worked and fed the sparrows, and you would never have known it."

"But you came." The hand upon the railing relaxed. "My mother was a Creole," he continued. "She came from New Orleans to marry my father, and died because the North was cold and her heart was in the South. You are my South, and the world is cold, for my heart is in you."

"I have wanted love all my life," said Mariana, "and now I have found it. I have thought before that I had it, but it was only a shadow. This is real. As real as myself--as real as this railing. I feel glad--oh, so glad!--and I feel tender. I should like to pray and go softly. I should like to make that old woman at the flower-stall happy and to freshen the withered flowers. I should like to kiss the children playing on the sidewalk. See how merry they look," and she leaned far over. "I should like to pat the head of that yellow dog in the gutter. I should like to make the whole world glad--because of you."

"Mariana!"

"The world is beautiful, and I love you; but I am sorry--oh, so sorry!--for the people in the street."

"Forget them, beloved, and think of me."

"But you taught me to think of them."

"I will teach you to think of me."

"That I have learned by heart."

"Mariana!"

They stood with locked hands upon the balcony, and the roar of the elevated road came up to them, and the old flower-woman put up her withered flowers and went her way, and the children's laughter grew fainter upon the air, and the yellow dog gnawed at a rock that it took for a bone; and the great, great wheel ground on, grinding to each man and to each dog according to his kind his share of the things written and unwritten in the book of life.

A week later they were married. Mariana had coveted a church ceremony, and Anthony had desired a registrar's office, so they compromised, and the service was read in Mr. Speares's study.

"I should have dearly liked the 'Lohengrin March' and stained-gla.s.s windows," remarked Mariana, a little regretfully, as they walked homeward. "It seems as if something were missing. I can't tell just what."

"What does it matter?" asked Algarcife, cheerfully. "A street corner and an organ-grinder would have answered my purpose, had he been legally empowered to p.r.o.nounce the blessing. It is all rot, I suppose, but I'd face every priest and rabbi in New York if they could bind us closer."

He smiled at Mariana. His eager face looked almost boyish, and he walked with the confident air of one who is sure of his pathway.

"But they could not," added Mariana, and they both laughed, because they were young and life was before them.

They retained the rooms in The Gotham with the fire-escape outside the windows, though Anthony found that his income, after deducting a portion for Mariana's expenses, was barely sufficient. He had not realized before how complete was his reliance for existence upon the Bodley College. Even in the thrill of his first happiness there was a haunting vision of Mariana reduced to poverty and himself powerless. He endeavored to insure an independent livelihood by contributing semi-scientific articles to various reviews, but the work was uncongenial, and he felt it to be a failure. The basis of his mental att.i.tude was too firmly embedded to yield superficial product, and he tasted the knowledge that, had he known less, he might have lived easier.

At this time his great work was laid aside, a sacrifice to necessity, and he spent his days and nights in unmurmuring toil for the sake of Mariana. He was willing to labor, so long as he might love in the intervals of rest.

As for Mariana, she was vividly alive. Beneath the warmth of emotion her nature expanded into fulfilment, and with fulfilment awoke the subtle charm of her personality.

"Have you seen Mariana?" inquired Nevins of Ardly one day. "If so, you have seen a woman in love."

Ardly smiled and flicked the ashes from his cigar.

"Is she?" he asked, cynically; "or is it that the froth of sentiment above her heart is troubled and she believes the depth of pa.s.sion is stirred? I have lived, my dear fellow, as you probably know, and I have seen strange things, but the strangest of these is the way of a maid with a man."

"Be that as it may, she is charming," returned Nevins. "And Algarcife ought to thank his stars, though why she married him is a mystery I relegate to the general unravelling of judgment-day."

"She probably had sense enough to appreciate the most brilliant man in New York," concluded Ardly, loyally, as he took up a volume of Maupa.s.sant and departed.

And that Mariana did appreciate Algarcife was not to be questioned. She threw herself into the worship of him with absolute disregard of all r.e.t.a.r.ding interests. When he was near, she lavished demonstrations upon him; when he was away, she sat with folded hands and dreamed day-dreams.

She had given up her music, and she even went so far as to declare that she would give up her acquaintances, that they might be sufficient unto each other. For his sake she discussed theories which she did not understand, and accepted doctrines of which she had once been intolerant. That emotional energy which had led her imagination into devious ways had at last, she told herself, found its appropriate channel. Even the stringent economy which was forced upon them was turned into merriment by the play of Mariana's humor.

"Life must only be taken seriously," she said, "when it has ceased to be a jest, and that will be when one has grown too dull to see the point--for the point is always there."

"And sometimes it p.r.i.c.ks," laughed Anthony.