Sunny Slopes Part 8

"Did you have supper with the Baldwins?"

"Yes. You stayed with Mrs. Norris, didn't you?"

"Yes. Um, I am sleepy."

David coughed slightly.

"Get up off this floor, David Duke," scolded Carol. "Don't you know that floors are always drafty? I am surprised at you. I wish Prudence was here to make you soak your feet in hot water and drink peppermint tea."

"You work too hard, Carol. You are busy every minute."

"Yes. I have to be, to keep in hailing distance of you. You usually do about three things at once."

"It's been a good year, Carol. You've enjoyed it, spite of everything, haven't you?"

"It's been the most wonderful year one could dream of. Even Connie's literary imagination could not conjure up a sweeter one."

"Always something to do, something to think of, some one to see,--always on the alert, to-day crowded full, to-morrow to look forward to."

"And best of all, David, always with you, working with you, taking care of you,--always-- Oh, I am tired, but it is not so bad being tired out when you've done your level best."

"Carol, it is fine, labor is, it is life. I can't imagine an existence without it. Going to bed, worn out with the day, rising in the morning ready to plunge in over one's ears. It is the only real life there is.

How do people endure a drifting through the days, with never anything to do and never worn enough to sleep?"

"I don't know," said Carol promptly. "They aren't alive, that's sure.

But let's go to bed. David, please get off that floor and stop coughing."

David obediently got up, lightly dusting his trousers as he did so.

Then he lifted his arms high and breathed deeply. "Anyhow it is better to be tired than lazy, isn't it?"

CHAPTER VIII

REACTION

"Will you have this woman?"

David's clear, low voice sounded over the little church, and the bride lifted confident, trusting eyes to his face. The people in the pews leaned forward. They had glanced approvingly at the slender, dark-eyed girl in her bridal white, but now every eye was centered on the minister. The hand in which he held the Book was white, blue veined, the fingers long and thin. His eyes were nervously bright, with faint circles beneath them.

David looked sick.

So the glowing, sweet faced bride was neglected and the groom received scant attention. The minister cleared his throat slightly, and the service went smoothly on to the end.

But the sigh of relief that went up at its conclusion betokened not so much satisfaction that another young couple were setting forth on the troubled, tempting waters of matrimony, as that David had finished another service and all might yet be well.

Carol, half way back in the church, had heard not one word of the service.

"David is an angel, but I do wish he were a little less heavenly," she thought pa.s.sionately. "He--makes me nervous."

The carriage was at the door to take the minister and his wife to the Daniels home for the bridal reception, but David said, "Tell him to take us to the manse first, Carol. I've got to rest a minute. I'm tired to-night."

In the living-room of the manse he carefully removed the handsome black coat in which he had been graduated from the Seminary in Chicago, and in which a little later he had been ordained for the ministry and installed in his church in the Heights. Still later he had worn it at his marriage. David hung it over the back of a chair, saying as he did so:

"Wearing pretty well, isn't it? It may be called upon to officiate in other crises for me, so it behooves me to husband it well."

Then he dropped heavily on the davenport before the fireplace, with Carol crouching on a cushion beside him, stroking his hand.

"Let's not go to the reception," she said. "We've congratulated them a dozen times already."

"Oh, we've got to go," he answered. "They would be disappointed.

We'll only stay a few minutes. Just as soon as I rest--I am played out to-night--it is only a step."

They slipped among the guests at the reception quietly and un.o.btrusively, but were instantly surrounded.

"A good service, David," said Mr. Daniels, eying him keenly. "You make such a pretty job of it I'd like to try it over myself."

"Now, Dan," expostulated his anxious little wife. "Don't you pay any attention to him, Mrs. Duke, he's always talking."

"I know it," said Carol appreciatively. "I never pay attention."

"You need a vacation, Mr. Duke," broke in a voice impulsively.

"I know it," a.s.sented David. "We'll take one in the spring,--and you can help pay the expenses."

"You'd better take it now," suggested Mrs. Baldwin. "The church can get along without you, you know."

But the laugh that went up was not genuine. Many of them, in their devotion to David, wondered if the church really could get along without him.

David gaily waved aside the enormous plate of refreshments that was pa.s.sed to him. "I had my dinner, you know," he explained. "Carol isn't neglecting me."

"He had it, but he didn't eat it,--and it was fried chicken," said Carol sadly.

A few minutes later they were at home again, and before Carol had finished the solemn task of rubbing cold cream into her pretty skin, David was sleeping heavily, his face flushed, his hands twitching nervously at times.

Carol stood above him, gazing adoringly down upon him for a while.

Then shutting her eyes, she said fervently:

"Oh, G.o.d, do make David less like an angel, and more like other men."

Early the next morning she was up and had steaming hot coffee ready for David almost before his eyes were open.

"To crowd out that mean little cough that spoils your breakfast," she said. "I shall keep you in bed to-day."

All morning David lounged around the house, hugging the fireplace, and complained of feeling cold though it was a warm bright day late in April, and although the fire was blazing. In the afternoon he took off his jacket and loosened his collar.

"It certainly is hot enough now," he declared. "Open the windows, Carol,--I am roasting."