The Inner Shrine Part 35

Pruyn's butler and valet, but as to his trusted friends, and in that capacity she was sure they would do their duty and hold their tongues.

In a similar spirit, when she arrived, about half-past nine, at the Bay Tree Inn, she asked for the manager, and took him into her confidence. A runaway marriage, she informed him, had been planned to take place that very night at Lakefield, and she had come there as the companion and friend of a motherless girl, her object being to postpone the ceremony.

The manager listened with sympathy, and promised his help. As a matter of fact, a gentleman had arrived, driving his own motor, that very afternoon. He had put the machine in the garage, and taken a room, but had not registered. Their season having scarcely begun, and the hotel being empty, they were somewhat careless about such formalities. He could only say that the young man was tall, fair, and slender, and seemed to be a person of means. He believed, too, that at this very minute he was smoking on the terrace before the door. If Diane had not come up by another way she must have met him. She could step out on the terrace and see for herself whether it was the person she was looking for or not.

Being tolerably sure of that already, Diane preferred to complete her arrangements first. She would ask for a room as near as possible to the main door of the hotel, so that when the young lady arrived she could be ushered directly into it. Fortunately the establishment was able to offer her exactly what she required, one of the invalids' suites which were a special feature of the house--a little sitting-room and bedroom for the use of persons whose infirmities made a long walk between their own apartments and the sun-parlor inadvisable. Having inspected and accepted it, Diane bathed her face and smoothed her hair, after which she stepped out to confront Mr. Wappinger.

XX

She saw him at the end of the terrace, peering through the moonlight, down the driveway. She did not go forward to meet him, but waited until he turned in her direction. She knew that at a distance, and especially at night, her own figure might seem not unlike Dorothea's, and calculated on that effect. She divined his start of astonishment on catching sight of her by the abrupt jerk of his head and the way in which he half threw up his hands. When he began coming forward, it was with a slow, interrogative movement, as though he were asking how she had come there, in disregard of their preconcerted signals. Some exclamation was already on his lips, when, by the light streaming from the windows of the hotel, he saw his mistake, and paused.

"Good-evening, Mr. Wappinger. What an extraordinary meeting!"

Priding himself on his worldly wisdom, Carli Wappinger never allowed himself to be caught by any trick of feminine finesse. On the present occasion he stood stock-still and silent, eying Diane as a bird eyes a trap before hopping into it. Though he knew her as a friend to Dorothea and himself, he knew her as a subtle friend, hiding under her sympathy many of those kindly devices which experience keeps to foil the young.

He did not complain of her for that, finding it legitimate that she should avail herself of what he called "the stock in trade of a chaperon"; while it had often amused him to outwit her. But now it was a matter of Greek meeting Greek, and she must be given to understand that he was the stronger. How she had discovered their plans he did not stop to think; but he must make it plain to her that he was not duped into ascribing her presence at Lakefield to an accident.

"Is it an extraordinary meeting, Mrs. Eveleth--for you?"

"No, not for me," Diane replied, readily. "I only thought it might be--for you."

"Then I'll admit that it is."

"But I hoped, too", she continued, moving a little nearer to him, "that my coming might be in the way of a--pleasant surprise."

"Oh yes; certainly; very pleasant--very pleasant indeed."

"I'm a good deal relieved to hear you say that, Mr. Wappinger," she said, "because there was a possibility that you mightn't like it."

"Whether I like it or not", he said, warily, "will depend upon your motive."

"I don't think you'll find any fault with that. I came because I thought I could help Dorothea. I hoped I might be able indirectly to help you, too."

"What makes you think we're in need of help?"

She came near enough for him to see her smile.

"Because, until after you're married, you'll both be in an embarra.s.sing position."

"There are worse things in the world than that."

"Not many. I can hardly imagine two people like Dorothea and yourself more awkwardly placed than you'll be from the minute she arrives.

Remember, you're not Strephon and Chloe in a pastoral; you're two most sophisticated members of a most sophisticated set, who scarcely know how to walk about excepting according to the rules of a code of etiquette.

Neither of you was made for escapade, and I'm sure you don't like it any more than she will."

"And so you've come to relieve the situation?"

"Exactly."

"And for anything else?"

"What else should I come for?"

"You might have come for--two or three things."

"One of which would be to interfere with your plans. Well, I haven't. If I had wanted to do that, I could have done it long ago. I'll tell you outright that Mr. Pruyn requested me more than once to put a stop to your acquaintance with Dorothea, and I refused. I refused at first because I didn't think it wise, and afterward because I liked you. I kept on refusing because I came to see in the end that you were born to marry Dorothea, and that no one else would ever suit her. I'm here this evening because I believe that still, and I want you to be happy."

"Did you think your coming would make us happier?"

"In the long run--yes. You may not see it to-night, but you will to-morrow. You can't imagine that I would run the risk of forcing myself upon you unless I was sure there was something I could do."

"Well, what is it?"

"It isn't much, and yet it's a great deal. When you and Dorothea are married I want to go with you. I want to be there. I don't want her to go friendless. When she goes back to town to-morrow, and everything has to be explained, I want her to be able to say that I was beside her. I know that mine is not a name to carry much authority, but I'm a woman--a woman who has head a position of responsibility, almost a mother's place, toward Dorothea herself--and there are moments in life when any kind of woman is better than none at all. You may not see it just now, but--"

"Oh yes, I do," he said, slowly; "only when you've gone in for an unconventional thing you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb."

"I don't agree with you. Nothing more than the unconventional requires a nicely discriminating taste; and it's no use being more violent than you can help. You and Dorothea are making a match that sets the rules of your world at defiance, but you may as well avail yourselves of any little mitigation that comes to hand. Life is going to be hard enough for you as it is--"

"Oh, I don't know about that. They can't do anything to us--"

"Not to you, perhaps, because you're a man. But they can to Dorothea, and they will. This is just one of those queer situations in which you'll get the credit and she'll get the blame. You can always make a poem on Young Lochinvar, when it's less easy to approve of the damsel who springs to the pillion behind him. I don't pretend to account for this idiosyncrasy of human nature; I merely state it as a fact. Society will forget that you ran away with Dorothea, but it will never forget that she ran away with you."

"H'm!"

"But I don't see that that need distress you. You wouldn't care; and as for Dorothea, she's got the pluck of a soldier. Depend upon it, she sees the whole situation already, and is prepared to face it. That's part of the difference between a woman and a man. _You_ can go into a thing like this without looking ahead, because you know that, whatever the opposition, you can keep it down. A woman is too weak for that. She must count every danger beforehand. Dorothea has done that. This isn't going to be a leap in the dark for her; it wouldn't be for any girl of her intelligence and social instincts. She knows what she's doing, and she's doing it for you. She has made her sacrifice, and made it willingly, before she consented to take this step at all. She crossed her Rubicon without saying anything to you about it, and you needn't consider her any more."

"Well, I like that!" he said, in an injured tone, thrusting his hands into his overcoat pockets and beginning to move along the terrace.

"Yes; I thought you would," she agreed, walking by his side. "It shows what she's willing to give up for you. It shows even more than that. It shows how she loves you. Dorothea is not a girl who holds society lightly, and if she renounces it--"

"Oh, but, come now, Mrs. Eveleth! It isn't going to be as bad as that."

"It isn't going to be as bad as anything. Bad is not the word. When I speak of renouncing society, of course I only mean renouncing--the best.

There will always be some people to--Well, you remember Dumas'

comparison of the sixpenny and the six-shilling peaches. If you can't have the latter, you will be able to afford the former."

They walked on in silence to the end of the terrace, and it was not till after they had turned that the young man spoke again.

"I believe you're overdrawing it," he said, with some decision.

"Isn't it you who are overdrawing what I mean? I'm simply trying to say that while things won't be very pleasant for you, they won't be worse than you can easily bear--especially when Dorothea has steeled herself to them in advance. I repeat, too, that, poor as I am, my presence will be taken as safeguarding some of the proprieties people expect one to observe. I speak of my presence, but, after all, you may have provided yourself with some one better. I didn't think of that."

"No; there's no one."

"Then Dorothea is coming all alone?"