The Strange Proposal E-Book

Grace Livingston Hill

• Herausgeber: Reading Essentials
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Mary Elizabeth discovers the strange history of the young man who proposes to her at their first meeting.

Leseprobe

The Strange Proposal

by Grace Livingston Hill

First published in 1935

This edition published by Reading Essentials

Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Chapter 1

1930s

John Saxon saw Mary Elizabeth for the first time as she walked up the church aisle with stately tread at Jeffrey Wainwright’s wedding. John was best man and stood at the head of the aisle with the bridegroom, where he could see everything.

First came the ushers stealing on the picture with earnest intent to get the business over, then the four bridesmaids in pale green crisp gowns—and then Mary Elizabeth! She was wearing something soft and delicately rosy, like the first flush of dawn in the sky, and bearing her armful of maidenhair fern and delicate blossoms like a sheaf of some lovely spring harvest. She preceded the bride, Camilla (on the arm of her father’s old friend Judge Barron), as if she delighted to introduce her to the waiting world.

But John Saxon had no eyes for the lovely bride, for they had halted at Mary Elizabeth and held there all the way up the aisle.

Mary Elizabeth had eyes that were wide and starry, fringed with long, dark lashes under fine level brows. There was a hint of a smile on her lovely unpainted mouth, a little highborn lifting of her chin, a keen interest and delight apparent in her whole attitude that distinguished her from the rest of the bridal party. To her it was all a beautiful game they were playing, and she was enjoying every minute of it. There was none of that intent determination to get each step measured just right, each move made with the practiced precision that characterized the procession of the bridesmaids. Mary Elizabeth moved along in absolute rhythm, as naturally as clouds move or butterflies hover.

The wide brim of the transparent hat she wore seemed to John Saxon almost like the dim shadow of a halo as she lifted her head and gave him a friendly, impersonal glance before she moved to her place at the left of the aisle.

The bridesmaids wore thin white hats also, but they were not halos; they were only hats.

John suddenly remembered the bride, whom he had not sighted as yet except as background, and lest he seem to stare at Mary Elizabeth, he turned and looked down the aisle to Camilla. Camilla, in her mother’s lovely embroidered organdy wedding dress of long ago; Camilla, wearing the ancestral Wainwright wedding veil of costly hand-wrought lace and John Saxon’s orange blossoms from his own Florida grove; Camilla, carrying Jeff’s white orchids and looking heavenly happy as she smiled up to answer her bridegroom’s welcoming smile.

Yes, she was a very lovely bride, with her gold hair shining beneath the frostwork of lace and waxen blossoms! How splendid they were going to look together, Jeff and Camilla! How glad he was for Jeff that he had found a girl like that!

Then he stepped one pace to the right and front and took his place in the semicircle as had been planned, with the old minister standing before them against the background of palms and flowers that the old hometown people had arranged for Camilla’s wedding.

He raised his eyes again to find Mary Elizabeth, wondering if she might not have vanished, if she could possibly be there in the flesh and not be a figment of his imagination. He met her eyes again and found her broadcasting that keen delight in what they were doing, found himself responding to that glint in her eyes, that bit of a smile at the corner of her lovely mouth. It was as if they had known each other for a long time. It couldn’t be true that he had only just now seen her and for the first time felt that start of his heart at the vision of her! It couldn’t be true that he had never been introduced to her!

John had arrived but the day before the wedding and spent the most of his time since in acquiring the necessary details of dress in which to appear as best man.

Quite casually he had asked when Jeff met him at the train and as he pocketed the directions Jeff had given him to find the right tailor and haberdashery shops: “And who is this person, this maid of honor I’m supposed to take on as we go back up the aisle after the ceremony? Some flat tire I suppose, since you’ve picked the one and only out of all the women of the earth.” He gave Jeff a loving slap on the shoulder.

“Why, she’s quite all right, I guess. I haven’t seen her yet, but she’s an old schoolmate of Camilla’s. She’s on her way here from California just to attend the wedding. Camilla says she’s a great Christian worker and interested in Bible study, so I guess you’ll hit it off. Anyway, I hope she won’t be too much of a bore. She’s expected to arrive tomorrow afternoon sometime. Somebody will fill in for her tonight at the rehearsal I believe, so she won’t be around long enough to matter anyway. Her name is … Foster—I think that’s it. Yes, Helen Foster.”

Nobody had told John about a washout on the road halfway across the continent, a wreck ahead of Helen Foster’s train, and a delay of twenty-four hours. He had not heard that, in spite of frantic attempts to reach an airport from the isolated place of the wreck in time to arrive for the ceremony, the maid of honor had telegraphed only two hours before the wedding that she could not possibly get there. He had spent most of the day in shops, perplexing his mind over the respective values of this and that article of evening wear, and arrived at the hotel only in time to get into his new garments and arrive at the church at the hour appointed. He was there just a few minutes before Jeff. And so he had escaped the excitement and anxiety that resulted from the news of the missing maid of honor. He did not know how hurriedly and anxiously the troublesome question of whether or how to supply her place at this last minute had been discussed and rediscussed, nor how impossible at this last minute it had seemed to get even a close friend to come in and act in a formal wedding without the necessary maid of honor outfit.

Excitement had run high, and Camilla had just escaped tears as the thought of the Warren Wainwrights, and the Seawells of Boston, and the Blackburns and Starrs of Chicago and New York, all new, unknown, to-be relations. She went down the list of all the girls she knew who would be at all eligible for the position of maid of honor and shook her head in despair. There wouldn’t be one who could take the place at a moment’s notice and fit right in, and even if there were one, what would she do for a dress?

Dresses could be bought of course, even as late as that, but no ordinary dress would be able to enter the simple yet lovely scheme of the wedding without seeming to introduce a wrong note in an otherwise perfect harmony. Oh, of course it might be bought in New York if one had the time to shop around, but the hometown wasn’t New York, and no one had the time. Camilla stood in the sitting room of the hotel suite she and her mother were occupying together and drew her brows together in perplexity, trying to think of some dress she had herself that would do, that she could lend to someone, no matter who, so that the wedding procession should not be lacking a maid of honor. She was resigning herself to doing without a maid of honor when Jeffrey Wainwright walked in and wanted to know why Camilla’s eyes didn’t light at his coming as they had lighted all day whenever he had appeared on the scene.

Camilla told him anxiously what was the matter, and he met her worry with a smile.

“That’s all right,” he said gaily when he had listened to the tale and stood looking at the telegram over Camilla’s shoulder. “Get Mary Beth! That is, if you don’t mind having one of my cousins instead of one of your own friends. Mary Beth always has oodles of clothes along with her of every kind. She’ll find something that will do. She’s just arrived, and she’ll love to do it. You haven’t met Mary Beth yet, have you? She’s my very best cousin and just got back from abroad. Shall I go get her? She’s only down the hall a little way. Just show her what you want and she’ll manage it somehow; she always can.”

And so Mary Elizabeth had come, smiling at Jeff’s summons. She had kissed Camilla and her mother, had looked over the bridal array, including the bridesmaids’ crisp pale gowns, and then had departed with a confident smile and a lift of her happy chin as she said, “Leave it to me! I’ll love to do it. I’ve got just the right thing—a pale rose chiffon I picked up in Paris—a little confection and just as simple as a baby!”

And when Camilla saw her an hour later as Mary Beth slipped in for inspection, she forgot her worries, knowing that the simple little dress from the exclusive Paris shop knew how to keep its distinguished lines in their place and would never stand out as being too fine for its associates.

And so quite unexpectedly, Camilla came to know and love Mary Elizabeth. But of this John Saxon knew nothing at all.

And now, though John was sorely tempted to study the face across from him to the exclusion of everything else, he was a dependable person, and he knew his responsibility as a best man. He had a ring to deliver at just the right moment, and he was not a man to forget his duty. So he held his eyes and his thoughts in leash until the ring was safely given to Jeff and Jeff had placed it on Camilla’s finger, and then his glance lifted and met the glance of Mary Elizabeth, and both of them smiled with their eyes. Though their lips were perfectly decorous, each of them knew that they had been enjoying that little ceremony of the ring together. Mary Elizabeth was now holding the great bouquet of orchids, along with her own green and white and blush-rose sheaf. Sweet, fine Mary Elizabeth! John thought how sweet and unspoiled she looked, and stood there watching her with his eyes alight, thinking quick eager thoughts, his mind leaping ahead. In a few minutes now, or it might be even seconds, it would be his duty to turn and march down that aisle by her side, and he could actually speak to her. They had not been introduced, but that was a mere formality. They were set in this wedding picture to march together, and they could not go like dummies because they had not been introduced. He thrilled at the thought of speaking to her.

The prayer was over, the solemn final sentences said that made Camilla Chrystie and Jeffrey Wainwright man and wife, the tender consummating kiss given. Mary Elizabeth handed Camilla her lovely white orchids and adjusted the veil and the quaint, old-fashioned train, and Jeffrey and Camilla started down the way of life together. Then Mary Elizabeth adjusted her own flowers and turned, smiling, to greet the best man who stood there breathless above her.

John laid her hand on his arm as if it were something breakable. The thrill of it gave his face a radiance even through the Florida bronze. He looked down at her eagerly, as though they were long-lost friends who had by some miracle come together again.

“I’ve been looking for you for a long time!” he said as they wheeled into step. Mary Elizabeth looked up and saw something arresting and almost disturbing in his glance.

“Yes?” she said brightly. “I have been running around a good deal today. I guess I was hard to find.”

“Oh, not just today!” said John, conscious that the next measure was the one they should start on to follow the bride and groom. “A long time! Years! In fact, I guess I always knew there would be you sometime! But will you mind if I’m abrupt? We’ve only got from here to the door to talk and then the mob will snatch us apart, and I’ve got to leave on the midnight train!”

“Oh!” breathed Mary Elizabeth, looking up wonderingly into his eyes, a sparkle in her own.

They were off in perfect time with the stately old march now, quite unconscious of the eager audience watching them with keen eyes, not realizing that they were the next most interesting pair in the whole show, after the bride and groom, who had now passed out of sight of all except a few who deliberately turned around and stared at John and Mary Elizabeth’s backs.

“Who is she?” whispered Sallie Lane to Mrs. Sampson.

“Some relative of the groom, I heard.”

“But I thought it was to be Helen Foster!”

“Oh, hadn’t you heard? There was an accident and Helen’s train was late. They had to get somebody at the last minute. Don’t you see her dress is different? It isn’t the same stuff, doesn’t stand out so stiff and crisp, and it’s terribly plain. Too bad! I heard the bridal party all had their dresses made off the same pattern.”

“I like it. It kind of fits her. Say, don’t they look wonderful together? I shouldn’t wonder if they’re engaged or something. Look at the way he looks at her! They certainly know each other well.”

“I love you,” John was saying in a low, thrilling voice, a voice that was almost like a prayer.

And Mary Elizabeth, quite conscious now of the many eyes upon her, kept that radiant smile upon her lips and the sparkle in her eyes as she looked up to catch the low words from his lips.

“But you couldn’t, of course, all at once like that!” she said, smiling as if it were a good joke. “Is this supposed to be the newest thing in proposals of marriage? I’ve never had one going down a wedding aisle, though I’ve been maid of honor several times before.”

She looked up at him archly with her sparkling smile to cover the trembling of her lips, the strange thrilling of her heart over this stranger’s words.

“Is there any reason why it shouldn’t be that?” he breathed as they neared the door and the wedding party began to mull about them in the vestibule. It seemed to him they had fairly galloped down that aisle.

“If my gloves had been off, I suppose you might have thought there was,” said Mary Elizabeth with a sudden memory in her eyes.

“Your gloves?” said John, looking down at the little scrap of a hand that lay there like a white leaf on his arm.

Then suddenly he laid his other hand upon hers with a quick investigating pressure, and looked at her aghast.

“Then—you mean—that I am too late?” he asked, caring not that they were now in the midst of the giggling bridesmaids whispering what mistakes they had made, and how this one and that one had looked.

“Oh, not necessarily!” said Mary Elizabeth, now with a wicked twinkle in her eyes. “It was only an experiment, wearing it tonight. It came in the mail a few days ago with a very persistent letter, and I thought I might try it out. But there’s nothing final about it!”

And Mary Elizabeth gave him a ravishing childlike smile that left him bewildered and utterly routed. He didn’t know whether she was trying to be flippant or merely making talk to cover any possible embarrassment, for they were right in the thick of the crowd now, with someone outside directing traffic loudly, and suddenly John realized that he was still best man and had duties about putting the bride and groom in the right car. He fled headlong into the street.

He was the fool, of course, he told himself. He had gone off on a whim, and no girl in her senses would take sudden words spoken like that seriously. Oh, he had probably messed the whole thing up now. She wouldn’t even recognize him when she got to the hotel, or would call a lot of her friends to protect her. What a fool! What a fool he had been! He hadn’t thought that he could ever be impulsive like that!

But when he had slammed the door on Jeff and his bride and turned about with his miserable eyes to see what he could see, and whether she was still in sight, someone caught him and whirled him into a car.

“Here, Saxon,” the unknown voice said, “get in quick! Jeff wants you there as soon as he is!” The car whirled away before he was fairly seated. In fact, he almost sat down on someone who was already there in the dark, sitting in the far corner.

He turned to apologize, and she laughed, a soft little silvery laugh.

“I bribed the valet to give us a whole car to ourselves,” she said gaily, “so that you could finish what you had to say.”

He caught his breath and his heart leaped up.

“Do you mean that you are going to forgive me for being so—so—so presumptuous?” he asked.

“Do you mean you didn’t mean what you said?” rippled out Mary Elizabeth’s laughing voice, the kind of a laugh that sometimes covers tears.

“Mean what I said?” said John, in the tone he often used to rebuke a boy whom he was coaching when he was scoutmaster in Florida. “I certainly did mean what I said!” he repeated doggedly. “And I’ll always mean it. But I know I ought not to have flung it out at you that way in public, only I didn’t see that I would ever get another chance if I didn’t do something about it right away.”

“Why, I didn’t mind that,” said Mary Elizabeth gravely. “It was quite original and interesting. It made the walk down the aisle unique. Something to remember!” There was a lilt in her voice that might be suppressed mirth. John eyed her suspiciously through the dark, but she sat there demurely in her corner, and he felt awed before her. Perhaps he had been mistaken and she was one of those modern girls after all.

But no! He remembered the haloed face, the lovely unpainted smile. He would never think that! She might not be for him, but she was what she seemed. She could not be otherwise.

“Yes,” he said, with a tinge of bitterness in his voice, “something for you to laugh about afterward! A country hick come to town to make a fool of himself, putting a girl in an embarrassing position in public!”

“No!” she said sharply. “Don’t say that! You didn’t! I wasn’t embarrassed! I liked it! I really did! I felt … honored!”

And suddenly one of the little white hands stole out of the darkness and crept into his hand with a gentle reassurance, and—it was ungloved!

He folded his hand about hers, marveling at its delicacy, its softness, the way it lay relaxed within his own strong hand. It was then he remembered the ring under the glove.

“But—you are already engaged!” he reminded himself aloud sternly. And then he felt for the ring again. This was the same left hand that had lain upon his arm as they went down the aisle together—galloped down!

Then he sat up sharply, felt the little hand all over, and reached over to the other hand that lay in her lap. It still wore a glove!

He sat back again and drew a breath of relief.

“Where is that ring?” he said.

“Here, in my handbag,” she said, sweetly offering him a tiny scrap made of white beads and gilt. “Did you want it?”

“Was it a joke you were playing?” he accused sternly.

“Oh, no,” she answered lightly. “I told you it wasn’t at all final. I’ve had that ring several days, and I just thought I’d try it out tonight and see if I cared to keep it.”

He hesitated a moment, still holding the little ungloved hand that lay so yielded in his own.

“Then … there is no reason why I may not tell you of my love!”

“Well, I would have to consider that,” said Mary Elizabeth gravely. “It was rather unexpected, you know. But here we are at the hotel. Don’t you think perhaps we’d better get out now?”

John helped her out, thrilling with the thought of touching even the hem of her garment, guarding her flowers, picking up her glove from the cushion, touching her belovedly, his heart pounding away with an embarrassment and trepidation that was quite new to him. John was usually at his ease anywhere, and he had been in the world enough not to feel strange. But he felt like a fool when he thought of what he had been saying, and recalled the keen, bright retaliations.

They hurried through the hall and up the elevator to the big room set aside for the wedding reception, and John blessed the fate that gave him even this silent bit of time more before they had to face the others. He looked down upon her, in her lovely halo hat, and she looked up and smiled, and there was no scorn in her smile as he had feared. Yet she had in no way put herself in his debt. She had held her own. His eyes drank in her delicate beauty hungrily against a time of famine he feared might be swiftly coming. He would never forget her nearness, the soft fragrance that came from her garments, the natural loveliness of her. He tried to summon her name from his memory, where it hovered on the edge of things and evaded him. Was it Helen? But that was not the type of name for such a girl as this.

Then the elevator door clanged back and they stepped into the big room smothered in ferns and palms and flowers, and there in a distant arbor that seemed almost like an orchid-hung hammock in one of his own Florida forests, the bride and groom were taking their places, Camilla smiling up at Jeff so joyously that John’s heart gave another leap. Would such joy ever come to him?

He looked down at the girl by his side, and their eyes met and something flashed from one to the other, a gleam that thrilled them both.

Chapter 2

Come,” said the girl, with a certain possessiveness in her voice, “we must go over and stand by them, you know.” She put her still ungloved hand on his and led him across the room. Behind them the elevator clanged again and opened its doors to let the green-clad bridesmaids surge in with the ushers, and the reception was upon them in full blast. But somehow John didn’t mind. His heart was leaping in new rhythm, and a song was in his heart.

“Hold this for me, please, while I put on my glove,” said Mary Elizabeth, handing over her little pearl purse as if she had been used to having him all her life for an escort.

He took the purse shyly in his bronzed hands. He was not accustomed to holding such trinkets for ladies. Not that he didn’t know plenty of ladies, but he had always shied out of paying them much attention. And yet, he liked the feel of her purse in his hand, and while he watched her putting on the glove so expertly, he grew bold enough to gently prod the purse till he had located the ring, a great ox of a stone, he told himself as he carefully appraised its value. He could never get her a ring like that, he thought to himself dismally in one of the intervals of the passing throng of guests. Even if he succeeded beyond his hopes he couldn’t. That ring had been bestowed by some millionaire of course, and she had been weighing its worth, and perhaps its owner. He frowned so hard that Uncle Warren Wainwright asked his wife afterward if that best man wasn’t a rather stern-looking fellow. But his wife said no, she thought he was splendid looking, so nice and tanned and well built, so he said he guessed he must have been mistaken. Uncle Warren was like that, always ready to concede to his wife’s opinion. He had made his money in spite of doing that.

The long procession of gushing or shy friends had surged by at last and the bridal party was seated around the bride’s table at the “throne end” as Jeffrey called it, of the banquet hall.

“There,” said Mary Elizabeth as John seated her, “isn’t this nice and cozy? You didn’t know we were going to sit together, did you?” John sat down beside her, feeling like a prisoner on parole.

There was comparative privacy where they were, amid the cheerful laughter and talk of the rest of the wedding party. The wedding roses, the tall candles, all made it a fairyland, and they carried on their little private conversation there between themselves, the girl continually ready with her sparkle and smiles. And nobody wondered that the attractive best man was absorbed in the lovely maid of honor.

Quite suddenly, it seemed, the wedding supper was over. John found his heart sinking. Soon the beautiful links would be broken, and when would he ever see her again? He tried to make some plans, say something to her about it, but the glamour of her presence somehow dazed him. He ought to tell her that he was a poor man. That it would be some time before he could claim her. He ought to let her know about his one year more of graduate work in medical school. She ought to know that his wedding could never be the grand affair that this was. He was not a Wainwright. There were things he ought to say to arrange what they should do in the future, but to save his life he could not say them, could not put them into the words that ought to frame them. Not with all these good, kindly people around them, shouting pleasant nothings across the table, mixing together for that one night, strangers, but with a common interest in the bride and groom. His tongue was tied! And perhaps there would be no other time!

“And I don’t even know your address,” he wailed, as suddenly the bride arose and everybody got up with her.

“I’ll write it for you and give it to you before you leave,” she assured him with a smile. “Where is my little bag? I have a pencil and card in it.”

He handed it forth reluctantly. It seemed he was giving up one of the slender links that bound them.

“I’ll have it ready for you when you come down.” Her smile was bright. “You have to go upstairs with Jeff, don’t you? Well, I’ll be waiting over there by the alcove, and—you know I’m driving you to the station afterward, so don’t go and order a taxi or anything. That’s the business of the maid of honor after her duties for the bride are done. She has to look after the best man, you know. That is, when he needs looking after.”

She slipped away up the stairs with one of her sparking glances, and looking after her he had to own to himself that he actually wasn’t sure yet whether she was only playing a game with him or had taken his words seriously. Nevertheless, he went to Jeff’s room with something singing down in his heart.

So while the guests were waiting below to play the usual bridal tricks on the departing couple, with a sentinel stationed at every hotel exit, Camilla, with the help of her mother and Miss York, their friend, got out of her bridal array and into the lovely, simple going-away outfit. She calmly kissed the women good-bye, including Mary Elizabeth, who had slipped in a minute before and now stood holding the precious orchids.

“But what are you going to do with your bouquet, Camilla?” she asked. “You can’t go away without the time-honored ceremony of throwing your flowers for the bridesmaids to catch.”

“You’ll have to do it for me, new cousin,” said Camilla, smiling. “Or perhaps you’ll prefer to keep them yourself. If they bring any good luck, I’d rather you’d have them, Mary Elizabeth, dear! I’m going to love you a lot.”

Then Camilla put on a stiff, white, starched nurse’s smock and a tricky little cap, tucking her own soft hat under the big blue nurse’s cape. She stepped to a door connecting with another suite of rooms, unlocked it, and stood a moment looking at them all with happy eyes.

“Good night!” she said, sweeping them a courtesy.

“But, Camilla, where are your bags?” said Mary Elizabeth.

“Safe in our car and waiting for us in a little village three miles from town. Jeff saw to all that. Good-bye, and it’s up to you, Mary Elizabeth, to go down and announce that I’ve fled and you’ve found nothing but my bouquet, and therefore it’s yours, because you found it first.”

And with another smile and a kiss blown at them all, she turned and went into the other room, closing the door behind her. Nurse York swiftly locked it after her, and the three conspirators hurried downstairs by devious ways, looking most innocent.

No one noticed a nurse with a tray of dishes slip out of the end room and hurry down the servants’ stairs.

Down at the back of the building, the caterer’s car was drawn up for hampers of silver and dishes to be stowed away, and two young men in chef’s linen coats and aprons stole through the basement kitchens with the nurse behind them. They slipped into the back of the caterer’s car; that is, one young chef and the nurse slipped in, and one chef stayed behind. And not even the careful watchers in the yard had a suspicion. The back door of the car was slammed, and a driver got into the front seat and put his foot on the starter.

“Oh, by the way,” said John Saxon, slipping up again to the little window at the back of the car, “I liked your Miss Foster a lot. Thanks for helping me to meet her!”

“But you didn’t meet her,” giggled the young woman in the nurse’s uniform.

“Oh, but I did,” said John heartily. “We didn’t mind a little thing like that. We introduced ourselves!”

“Oh, but you didn’t,” cried the soft voice again. “She wasn’t there at all!”

But the driver had put his foot on the starter and the car clattered away, and John was none the wiser for that last sentence.

He stole back through the servants’ corridors, rid himself of his disguise, and mingled again with the guests unobtrusively.

“Oh, hello!” said someone presently. “Here’s the best man! Where are they, Mr. Saxon? Which way are they coming down?”

“Why, there isn’t any way but the elevator, is there?” said John innocently. “Jeff was all ready when I left him.”

There was excited gathering of guests in little groups, then the appearance of the bride’s mother, smiling and a bit teary about the lashes, brought about a state of eager intensity. The elevator came and went, and there was a dead silence every time it opened its noisy doors to let out some guest of the house. They all stood in the big entrance hall clutching their handfuls of paper rose leaves and rice and confetti. Outside the door stood a big car belonging to Mr. Warren Wainwright, understood to be the going-away car, well decorated in white satin ribbons and old shoes and appropriate sentiments, but time went on and nothing happened!

“I’m going up to see what has happened!” announced Mary Elizabeth, when excitement grew to white heat and suspicion began to grow into a low rumble of anxiety.

She stepped into the elevator and disappeared, and a breath of relief went up from the guests.

Then Mary Elizabeth descended again with the great bouquet of white orchids in her hand! The bouquet that every one of those four bridesmaids had so longed to be able to catch for herself!

And when they saw the orchids, it did not need Mary Elizabeth’s dramatic announcement—“She’s gone! And I’ve got the orchids!”—to tell what had happened.

A howl went up from the disappointed tricksters, and if it had been anybody else but Mary Elizabeth with her bright, friendly smile, she might have been mobbed.

But Mary Elizabeth had disappeared in the excitement and slipped up to her room, and by the time the guests had begun to drift away, she appeared with a long dark wrap over her arm, jingling her key ring placidly, with no offending orchids in sight. When John came back after seeing Camilla’s mother to her room as he had promised Jeff he would do, there she was sitting demurely in the alcove, the long satin cloak covering her delicate dress, and her eyes like two stars, waiting for him.

It thrilled him anew to see her there and meet her welcoming smile, just as if they had been belonging to each other for a long time. Even in the brief interval of his absence he had been doubting that it could be true that he had found a girl like that. Surely the glamour would have faded when he got back to her.

But there she was, a real flesh-and-blood girl, as lovely in the simple lines of the soft black satin cloak as she had been in the radiant rosy chiffons.

She had taken off her gloves, and he thrilled again to draw her hand within his arm as they went out to the car.

The doorman put his bags in the back of the car, and Mary Elizabeth drove away from the blaze of light that enveloped the whole front of the hotel. They were alone. Really alone for the first time since he had seen her! And suddenly he was tongue-tied!

He wanted to take her in his arms, but a great shyness had come upon him. He wanted to tell her what was in his heart for her, but there were no words adequate. Each one, as he selected it and cast it aside as unfit, seemed presumptuous.

John Saxon had a deep reverence for womanhood. He had acquired that from the teaching of his little plain, quiet mother. He had a deep scorn for modern progressive girls with bloody-looking lips, plucked eyebrows, and applied eyelashes. Girls who acquired men as so many scalps to hang at their belts, who smoked insolently and strutted around in trousers, long or short. He turned away from such in disgust. He hated their cocksure ways, their arrogance, their assumption of rights, their insolence against all things sacred. He had had a great doubt in his mind about even Camilla until he had seen her, watched her, talked with her, proved her to be utterly unspoiled in spite of her wonderful golden head and her smartly plain attire.

And now to find another girl with beauty and brightness and culture, who assumed none of the manners he hated, almost brought back his faith in true womanhood. Certainly he reverenced this girl beside him as if God had just handed her to him fresh out of heaven.

“Well,” said Mary Elizabeth presently as she whirled the car around a corner and glided down a wide street overarched with elm trees, “aren’t you wasting a great deal of time? Where are all those things you were going to say and didn’t have time for while we walked down that aisle?”

“Forgive me,” he said. “It seemed enough just to be sitting by your side. I was trying to make it seem real. I wasn’t quite sure but I might be in a dream. Because you see, I was never sure whether my dream of you through the years would be like this when I found you—if I found you!”

“That’s one of the nicest things anybody ever said to me,” said Mary Elizabeth softly, guiding her car slowly under the shadow of the elms.

“I suppose scores of men have said nice things to you,” John remarked dismally.

“Yes,” said the girl thoughtfully, “a great many. But I’m not sure they were always sincere. Their words didn’t always please me. Yours do. You know it’s rather wonderful to find someone that doesn’t have to be chattered to in order to feel the pleasant comfort of companionship. Even if I never see you again, we’ve had a lovely evening, haven’t we? I would never forget you.”

John started forward and closer to her, looking in her face.

“Is that all it means to you?” he said searchingly.

“I didn’t say it was,” said Mary Elizabeth with a dancing in her eyes that gleamed naughtily even in the dark as she turned toward him. “I shouldn’t prevent your seeing me again, of course, if you want to. I only said, even if I never saw you again, I wouldn’t forget that we’ve had a most unique and wonderful evening. You must remember that I have no data by which to judge you, except that presumably you are one of Jeff’s friends. Remember I’ve just arrived on the scene this morning, and not a blessed soul had time enough to gossip about you!”

“They wouldn’t,” said John ruefully. “There isn’t enough to say. But I was presumptuous, of course, to dare say what I did right out of the blue. I’m only a plain man, and you may be bound irrevocably to someone else.”

“I told you it was not final!” said Mary Elizabeth, driving smoothly up to the station and stopping the car.

“Yes,” said John, giving a quick startled look out at the station. “Yes, you said it was not final, but you gave me no hope that you would listen to me.”

“But I listened to you!”

“But you didn’t give me an answer.”

“Did you expect an answer?”

“I don’t know,” said John in a low tone. “I wanted one.”

“Just what did you say that needed answering?” Mary Elizabeth’s tone was sweet and courteous, and also the tiniest bit reserved.

“Why, I told you that I love you, and I asked you to marry me!”

“Did you?” said Mary Elizabeth, still sweetly and innocently. “I wasn’t sure. I thought I sort of dragged that out of you!”

He looked up quickly at her and caught that starry look in her eyes, and yet was there a twinkle of mischief, too? Could it be that she was still making fun of him, able to hold her own until the end?

“You surely didn’t expect me to tell you that I loved you, going down a church aisle at another girl’s wedding, did you?”

There was still the twinkle in her eyes, but there was something dear and tender in her voice, as if she were talking to the little boy he used to be long years ago when he dreamed her into his life someday in the far, far future.

“You couldn’t, of course. I wouldn’t expect you to feel the way I do,” said John humbly.

“I’m not saying how I feel,” said Mary Elizabeth, with her head held high. “But even if I feel it, you surely wouldn’t expect me to blurt it out that way right before the assembled multitude, would you?”

“No, I suppose not!” said John in a very dejected tone.

“As for marrying, people always have to have time to think that over, don’t they?”

“I suppose some people do. I didn’t!”

“But you should have, you know,” said Mary Elizabeth, still in that sweet tone in which one imparts knowledge to a small boy, very gently.

“I’m glad I didn’t!” said John quite suddenly, with a firm set of his jaw in the dark, that Mary Elizabeth could see because his profile was perfectly outlined against the bright light of the station platform.

“Yes, and so am I!” said Mary Elizabeth with an upward fling of her chin, ending in a little trill of a laugh with a lilting sound in it. “John Saxon, here comes your train, and you have to get your bags out! Do you really have to go tonight?”

“Yes, I really have to go!” said John through set teeth, giving Mary Elizabeth one wild look and springing out of the car.

He dashed to the back of the car, opened it, slung his bags down, gave a furtive glance down the track at the great yellow eye of light that was rushing toward them so speedily to part them, and before he could look into the car for a hasty farewell, he found Mary Elizabeth beside him.

“You haven’t given me your address,” he said breathlessly, measuring the distance of the track with another glance. “Tell me quick!”

“Here it is,” she said, slipping a small white envelope into his hand. “When am I—? When are you—? I mean—you’ll let me hear from you sometime?”

Her voice had a little shake in it, but she was looking steadily up with that brave smile on her lips—no, it wasn’t a mocking smile, he decided. His eyes lighted.

“I’ll write you tonight, at once!” he said. “Oh, I’d give anything if I only had another hour. How I have wasted my time!” He looked down at her tenderly.

“Yes,” she said sweetly, “you have, perhaps, but it was nice anyway, wasn’t it?”

He caught his breath at the sweetness of her voice and longed to catch her and hold her close, but dared he, now, without knowing how she would take it? His own reverence held him from it. And the train was slowing down a few steps away.

“Oh!” he breathed. “I love you!”

“But—” said Mary Elizabeth with a wistful little lifting of her lashes and that twinkle of a glance, “aren’t you even going to kiss me good-bye? Just friends often do that, you know!”

But the words were scarcely out of her mouth before his arms went eagerly round her and he laid his lips on hers.

“My darling!” he said. “Oh, my darling!”

Into the tenderness of his whispered words stabbed the sharpness of the conductor’s call.

“All aboard!”

John released her suddenly as if he were coming awake, seized his bags, and took three strides to the step of the nearest car, which was already beginning to move slowly. But when he turned about, there was Mary Elizabeth beside him, walking composedly along the platform, her cheeks very rosy, and she did not look angry. In fact, her eyes were still starry, and there was a twinkle of a smile about her lips. Her chin was tilted a bit as if she were proud of him.

Then did John Saxon’s heart leap with joy.

“That was final, dear!” he shouted down to her through the noise of the train.

“Yes?” said Mary Elizabeth. “You certainly did it thoroughly.”

And then the train got alive to its duty and swept them apart like a breath that is gone, and Mary Elizabeth stood alone on the long, empty platform gazing after a fast-disappearing red light at the end of the train.

Gone!

She put up the back of her hand to her hot cheek, touched her lips softly, sacredly, and smiled.

Had it been real?

Finally she turned, got into her car, and drove away.

When she reached her hotel the doorman summoned a man to take her car to the garage. Mary Elizabeth went up to her room, turned on all her lights, and went and faced her mirror to look straight into her own eyes and find out what she thought of herself.

Chapter 3

Meantime, out in the silence of a smooth dark road in their own luxurious car, the bride and groom drove happily through the night to a destination that Jeffrey Wainwright had picked out, and not even Camilla knew.

They had completed their exciting trip in the caterer’s car and had made a quiet transfer to their own in the haven of the backyard of an old farmhouse where a friend of Camilla’s mother lived. Not even the farmer and his wife were there to interfere, though they did stand behind a sheltering curtain and watch the car move smoothly out of their drive and down the road, and they felt the thrill of their own first journey as man and wife.

There had not been opportunity to talk in the caterer’s car, nor safety, lest they be followed, and by the time they were launched on their own way there were so many other thrilling things to say that they forgot that last encounter with John Saxon. But an hour later as they swept over a hill and looked down across a valley to where the lights of another small city blazed, the memory recurred to them.

“What did he mean, Jeff, about Helen Foster? Did no one tell him she wasn’t there?”

“Evidently not, from what he said. You see, we didn’t really have much time to talk. He probably confused Mary Beth with her. But what’s the difference?”

“A great deal, I should say,” said the bride in a wise tone. “If you’d noticed his eyes when he looked at her!”

“Now, Camilla, don’t go to being a matchmaker!” laughed Jeff. “Because if you do you’ll be disappointed. Those two will never get together. They’re as wide apart as the poles.”

“Any wider apart than we were, Jeff?”

She laid a caressing hand on her new husband’s arm, and he looked down on her tenderly and then leaned over and gave her another kiss.

“I insist,” he said, and kissed her again, “that we were never far apart. If we were, I never could have made the grade.”

Then they floated off to reminiscing again but eventually got back to John Saxon.

“What did he mean by saying they had introduced themselves? Can it be that nobody looked after that little matter?”

“It must have been. But it strikes me that John is able to get around and look after himself pretty well. It looked that way to me. They seemed to be having an awfully good time together.”

“Well, they would,” said Jeff thoughtfully. “They’re both unusual. But I’d hate like sixty to have John get interested in Mary Beth. She’s always been my favorite cousin, but I’ll have to own she’s a bit of a flirt. I don’t know how many men she’s kept on the string for a number of years now, and they’re all deeply devoted, but Mary Beth goes smiling on her way and takes none of them. I wouldn’t like John to get himself a heart and have it broken. He’s a constant old fellow, and he doesn’t care much for women, doesn’t have much opinion of the modern ones, and wouldn’t understand it. It might go hard with him.”

“But she seemed so sweet and genuine,” protested Camilla, perplexed.

“Yes, she is,” said Jeff, “but she’s always had her own way. Her father spoiled her, and her mother spoiled her, and then when her mother died and she inherited all that money besides what her father will leave her someday, she did more and more what she wanted to. Oh, I’ll admit she usually wanted to do nice things. She wasn’t bold and arrogant like the modern girl. She had ideals of her own, and she stuck to them. And that’s remarkable, too, since she’s traveled the world over a lot and had plenty of chances to go modern. She’s kept her smile and her natural face and hasn’t taken on rowdy airs and habits. She’s a great sport, and I admire her a lot. But she does let a lot of men trail after her, and just smiles and plays with them awhile and then lets them go. They are just a lot of toys to her it seems. And I’d hate to have John Saxon treated that way. He’s too genuine to be played with. And I’m not sure whether she could understand a man like John. I guess it’s a good thing that they’re not likely ever to meet again. I wouldn’t have John hurt for the world.”

“He looks to me as if he could take care of himself,” said Camilla.

And then they turned to the right and swept down into the heart of the little city and drove to their hotel, forgetting all about John Saxon and his affairs.

Back in the hotel where Camilla’s mother and Miss York were preparing for rest, Miss York was saying, “What kind of a girl is that Miss Wainwright, who took the place of maid of honor tonight?”

“Why, I think she’s very sweet,” said Camilla’s mother. “It was so nice of her at the last minute that way to be willing to fill in, not having a regular dress or anything!”

“She had a stunning dress!” said Miss York. “And she certainly was agreeable. Of course, most girls love a thing like that, and she certainly did the part well.”

“A great deal better than Helen Foster would have done,” said Camilla’s mother. “Poor Helen isn’t very pretty and never has known how to dress, but she’s a lovely girl and Camilla was very fond of her. But Miss Wainwright was sweet. I liked her very much. She seemed a good deal like Jeffrey, didn’t you think? The same blue eyes and clear complexion with dark hair. He’s always been very fond of her. She seems almost as if she might have been a sister.”

“Yes,” said Miss York reluctantly, “if she’s like him in spirit she couldn’t be improved upon. I was just wondering whether a girlcould be as beautiful, and as rich as they say she is, and not be spoiled.”

“Jeffery wasn’t spoiled,” said Jeffrey’s new mother-in-law.

“Jeffrey is unusual,” owned Miss York. “You know he’s unusual. You said so yourself!”

“Well, couldn’t his cousin be unusual, too?”