The Spenders Part 60

"She had her husband--she didn't need any old sampler after that--_Le mariage porte conseil, aussi, monsieur._ And now, you've married your wife with her wedding-ring, that came from Holland years and years ago."

It was after midnight when they began to pack. When they finished it was nearly four.

She had laid out a dark dress for the journey, but he insisted that she put it in a suit-case, and wear the one she had on.

"I shouldn't know you in any other--and it's the colour of your eyes. I want that colour all over the place."

"But we shall be travelling."

"In our own car. That car has been described in the public prints as a 'suite of palatial apartments with all modern conveniences.'"

"I forgot."

"We shall be going West like the old '49-ers, seeking adventure and gold."

"Did they go in their private cars?"

"Some of them went in rolling six-horse Concords, and some walked, and some of them pushed their baggage across in little hand-carts, but they had fun at it--and we shall have to work as hard when we get there."

"Dear me! And I'm so tired already. I feel quite done up."

She threw herself on the wide divan, and he fixed pillows under her head.

"You boy! I'm glad it's all over. Let's rest a moment."

He leaned back by her, and drew her head on to his arm.

"I'm glad, too. It's the hardest day's work I ever did. Are you comfortable? Rest."

"It's so good," she murmured, nestling on his shoulder.

"Uncle Peter took his honeymoon in a big wagon drawn by a mule team, two hundred miles over the 'Placerville and Red Dog Trail--over the mountains from California to Nevada. But he says he never had so happy a time."

"He's an old dear! I'll kiss him--how is it you say--'good and plenty.'

Did our Uncle Peter elope, too?"

He chuckled.

"Not exactly. It was more like abduction complicated with a.s.sault and battery. Uncle Peter is pretty direct in his methods. The young lady's family thought she could do better with a bloated capitalist who owned three-eighths of a saw-mill. But Uncle Peter and she thought she couldn't. So Uncle Peter had to lick her father and two brothers before he could get her away. He would have licked the purse-proud rival, too, but the rival ran into the saw-mill he owned the three-eighths of, and barricaded the whole eight-eighths--the-five-eighths that didn't belong to him at all, you understand--and then he threatened through a c.h.i.n.k to shoot somebody if Uncle Peter didn't go off about his business. So Uncle Peter went, not wanting any unnecessary trouble. I've always suspected he was a pretty ready sc.r.a.pper in those days, but the poor old fellow's getting a bit childish now, with all this trouble about losing the money, and the hard time he had in the snow last winter. By the way, I forgot to ask, and it's almost too late now, but do you like cats?"

"I adore them--aren't kittens the _dearest?"_

"Well--you're healthy--and your nose doesn't really fall below the specifications, though it doesn't promise that you're any _too_ sensible,--but if you can make up for it by your infatuation for cats, perhaps it will be all right. Of course I couldn't keep you, you know, if you weren't very fond of cats, because Uncle Peter'd raise a row--"

She was quite still, and he noted from the change in her soft breathing that she slept. With his free hand he carefully shook out a folded steamer rug and drew it over her.

For an hour he watched her, feeling the arm on which she lay growing numb. He reviewed the day and the crowded night. He _could_ do something after all. Among other things, now, he would drop a little note to Higbee and add the news of his marriage as a postscript. She was actually his wife. How quickly it had come. His heart was full of a great love for her, but he could not quite repress the pride in his achievement--and Shepler had not been sure until he was poor!

He lost consciousness himself for a little while.

When he awoke the cold light of the morning was stealing in. He was painfully cramped, and chilled from the open window. From outside came the loud chattering of sparrows, and far away he could hear wagons as they rattled across a street of Belgian blocks from asphalt to asphalt.

The light had been late in coming, and he could see a sullen grey sky, full of darker clouds.

Above the chiffonier he could see the ancient sampler.

_"La Nuit Porte Conseil."_ It was true.

In the cold, pitiless light of the morning a sudden sickness of doubting seized him. She would awake and reproach him bitterly for coercing her. She had been right, the night before,--it was madness.

They had talked afterward so feverishly, as if to forget their situation. Now she would face it coldly after the sleep.

_"La Nuit Porte Conseil."_ Had he not been a fool? And he loved her so.

He would have her anyway--no matter what she said, now.

She stirred, and her wide-open eyes were staring up at him--staring with hurt, troubled wonder. The amazement in them grew--she could not understand.

He stopped breathing. His embrace of her relaxed.

And then he saw remembrance--recognition--welcome--and there blazed into her eyes such a look of whole love as makes men thrill to all good; such a look as makes them know they are men, and dare all great deeds to show it. Like a sunrise, it flooded her face with dear, wondrous beauties,--and still she looked, silent, motionless,--in an ecstasy of pure realisation. Then her arms closed about his neck with a swift little rushing, and he--still half-doubting, still curious--felt himself strained to her. Still more closely she clung, putting out with her intensity all his misgiving.

She sought his lips with her own--eager, pressing.

"Kiss me--kiss me--kiss me! Oh, it's all true--all true! My best-loved dream has come all true! I have rested so in your arms. I never knew rest before. I can't remember when I haven't awakened to doubt, and worry, and heart-sickness. And now it's peace--dear, dear, dearest dear, for ever and ever and ever."

They sat up.

"Now we shall go--get me away quickly."

It was nearly seven. Outside the sky was still all gloom.

In the rush of her rea.s.surance he had forgotten his arm. It hung limp from his shoulder.

"It was cramped."

"And you didn't move it?"

They beat it and kneaded it gaily together, until the fingers were full of the rushing blood and able again to close warmly over her own little hand.

"Now go, and let me get ready. I won't be long."

He went below to the library, and in the dim grey light picked up a book, "The Delights of Delicate Eating." He tried another, "101 Sandwiches." The next was "Famous Epicures of the 17th Century." On the floor was her diary. He placed it on the table. He heard her call him from the stairs:

"Bring me up that ring from the table, please!"

He went up and handed it to her through the narrowly opened door.

As he went down the stairs he heard the bell ring somewhere below, and went to the door.

"Baggage!"