The Following of the Star Part 19

Diana laughed.

"My good Cousin David, it is quite too late to begin shielding me! In fact I never have been the carefully guarded 'young person.' I have read heaps of naughty books, of which, I daresay, you have never even heard!"

David winced. "Once more, I must have expressed myself badly," he said.

"I will not try again. But you must forgive me if I still decline to give you the pa.s.sage."

"Very well. But I shall hunt until I find it," smiled Diana, in playful defiance. "Did you use a concordance last night, Cousin David? I did. I looked out 'David'--pages and pages of it! I wondered whether you were looking out 'Diana.'"

He smiled. "I should only have found 'Diana of the Ephesians,'" he said; "and, though she fell mysteriously from heaven, she was quite unlike my Lady of Mystery."

"Who arrived in a motor-car," laughed Diana. "Do you know, when you told me you had called me--that, I thought it quite the most funnily unsuitable name I had ever heard. I realised how the Hunt would roar if they knew."

"You see," said David, "the Greek meaning of 'mystery' is: 'What is known only to the initiated.'"

"And you were not yet initiated?" suggested Diana.

"No," replied David. "The Hunt was not initiated."

Diana looked at him keenly. Cousin David was proving less easy to understand than she had imagined.

"Let us talk business," she said. "I will send for Mr. Inglestry this afternoon. How immensely relieved he will be! He can manage all legal details for us--the special license, and so forth. Of course we must be married in London; and I should like the wedding to be in St. Botolph's, that dear old church in Bishopsgate; because Saint Botolph is the patron saint of travellers, and that church is one where people go to pray for safe-keeping, before a voyage; or for absent friends who are travelling.

I can return there to pray for you, whenever I am in town. So shall it be St. Botolph's, David?"

"If you wish it," he said.

"You see, we could not have the wedding here or at Brambledene. It would be such a nine days' wonder. We should never get through the crowds of people who would come to gaze at us. I don't intend to make any mystery of it. I shall send a notice of our engagement to the papers. But I shall say of the wedding: 'To take place shortly, owing to the early date already fixed for the departure of the Rev. David Rivers to Central Africa.' Then no one need know the exact day. Chappie and Mr. Inglestry can be our witnesses; and you might get Sir Deryck. What time does the boat start?"

"In the afternoon, from Southampton. The special train leaves Waterloo at noon."

"Capital!" cried Diana. "We can be married at half-past ten, and drive straight to the station, afterwards. There is sure to be a luncheon-car on the train. We can have our wedding-breakfast _en route_, and I can see you off from Southampton. I have always wanted to see over one of those big liners. I may see you off, mayn't I, Cousin David?"

"If you wish," he said, gently.

"I can send my own motor down to Southampton the day before, and it will be an easy run back home, from there. We can hire a car for the wedding.

Wouldn't that be a good plan?"

"Quite a good plan," agreed David.

"G.o.d-papa shall marry us," said Diana; "and then I can make him leave out anything in the service I don't want to have read."

David sat up instantly.

"No," he said; "to that I cannot agree. Not one word must be omitted. If we are married according to the prescribed rules of our Church, we must not pick and choose as to what our Church shall say to us, as we humbly stand before her altar. I refuse to go through the service if a word is omitted."

Diana's eyes flashed rebellion.

"My dear Cousin David, have you read the wedding service?"

"I know it by heart," said David Rivers.

"Then you must surely know that it would simply make a farce of it, to read the whole, at such a wedding as ours."

"Nothing can make a farce of a Church service," said David firmly. "We may make a sham of our own part in it; but every word the Church will say to us, will be right and true."

"I _must_ have certain pa.s.sages omitted," flashed Diana.

"Very well," said David, quietly. "Then there can be no wedding."

"David, you are unreasonable and obstinate!"

David regarded her quietly, and made no answer.

Diana's angry flush was suddenly modified by dimples.

"Is this what people call finding one's master?" she inquired. "It is fortunate for our peace, dear Cousin, that we part on the wedding-day! I am accustomed to having my own way."

David's eyes, as he looked into hers, were sad, yet tender.

"The Church will require you, Miss Rivers, to promise to obey. Even your G.o.d-father will hardly go on with the ceremony, if you decline to repeat the word. I don't think I am a tyrant, or a particularly domineering person. But if, between the time we leave the church and the sailing of my boat, I should feel it necessary to ask you to do--or not to do--a thing, I shall expect you to obey."

"Brute!" cried Diana. "I doubt if I shall venture so far as the station.

Just to the church door, we might arrive, without a wrangle!" Then she sprang up, all smiles and sunshine. "Come, my lord and master! An it please you, I hear the luncheon-gong. Also the approach of Chappie, who responds to the call of the gong with a prompt and unhesitating obedience, which is more than wifely! Quick, my dear David, your hand.... Come in, Chappie! We want you to congratulate us! Your advice to me at breakfast appeared so excellent, that I have lost no time in following it. I have promised to marry my Cousin David, before he sails for Central Africa!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE EVE OF EPIPHANY

It was the eve of the wedding-day.

Diana lay back in an easy-chair in the sitting-room of the suite she always occupied at the Hotel Metropole, when in town.

A cheerful fire blazed in the grate. Every electric light in the room--and there were many--was turned on. Even the little portable lamp on the writing-table, beneath its soft silken shade, illumined its own corner. Diana's present mood required a blaze of light everywhere. The gorgeous colouring, the rapid movement, the continual bustle and rush of life in a huge London hotel, exactly suited her just now; especially as the movement was noiseless, on the thick Persian carpets; and the rush went swiftly up and down, in silently rapid elevators.

Within five days of her wedding, Diana had reached a point, when she could no longer stand the old oak staircase; the fatherly deportment of Rodgers; and meals alone with Mrs. Marmaduke Vane. Also David, pleading many pressing engagements in town, came no more to Riverscourt.

So Diana had packed her chaperon and her maid into the motor; and flown up to London, to be near David.

There was, for Diana, a peculiar and indefinable happiness in the days that followed. It was so long since she had had anybody who, in some sort, really belonged to her. David, when once they had met again, proved more amenable to reason than Diana had dared to hope. He allowed himself to be taken about in the motor to his various appointments each day. He let Diana superintend his simple outfit; he even let her supplement it, where she considered necessary. He was certainly very meek, for a tyrant; and very humbly gentle, for a despotic lord and master.

When he found Diana's heart was set upon it, he allowed her to pay for the elaborate medicine-chest he was taking out, and spent the money he had earned for this purpose, on the wedding-ring; and on a simple, yet beautiful, guard-ring. This, Diana wore already, upon the third finger of her left hand; a plain gold band, with just one diamond, cut star shape, inset. Round the inside of the ring, David had had engraved the three words: Gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Diana, who quickly formed habits, had already got into the way of twisting this ring, with the diamond turned inwards, when anything tried or annoyed her. Rather often, during those few days, the stone was hidden from Mrs. Vane's complacent sight; but when David was with her, it always shone upon her hand.