A Bachelor Husband. Ruby M. Ayres
has put her hair up," said Miss Chester.
Christopher looked away indifferently. "Oh, had she? I didn't notice."
The tears started to Marie's eyes. She felt like a disappointed child.
8
CHAPTER II
"All men kill the thing they love
By all let this be heard.
The coward does it with a kiss. … "
THERE followed a terribly dull week, during which Marie hardly went out. Miss Chester believed in seven days' unbroken mourning, and she kept the girl to it rigorously.
Christopher came and went. He seemed very busy, and was constantly shut up in the library with men whom Miss Chester said were "lawyers."
"There are a great many things to settle, you know," she told Marie. "Your father had large properties and much money to leave."
Marie said, "Oh, had he?" and lost interest. As yet money had not much significance for her, but she watched the closed library door with anxious eyes. Would it never open?
It was quite late that evening before she saw Chris again, and then he came into the drawing-room, where she was trying to read and trying not to listen for his step, and, crossing to where she sat, stood looking down at her.
It was getting dark—the June evening was drawing to a close—and she could not see his face very distinctly, though she felt in some curious way that there was a different note in his voice when he spoke to her.
"How old are you, Marie?"
She looked up amazed. Surely he ought to know her age when they had grown up together? But she answered at once: "I was eighteen last May."
"And a kid for your age, too," he said abruptly.
9 She closed her book, a faint sense of hurt dignity in her heart.
"I knew a girl who was married at eighteen," she said.
Christopher laughed. "I can't imagine you married, all the same." he said.
"Why not? I don't see why not," she objected, offendedly.
He stood for a moment looking down at her. She could feel his eyes upon her. Then he said, irrelevantly, it seemed: "After all, we've known each other most of our lives, haven't we?"
"Yes." She was mystified. She could not understand him.
"And got on well—eh?" he pursued.
She smiled ever so faintly. "Oh, yes," she said, with heartfelt fervor.
Chris laughed. "Well—I'll take you for a ride in the car to- morrow, if you like," he said, casually.
Marie could not have explained why, but she felt sure that this was not what he had originally intended to say to her, but she answered at once: "Yes, I should love it!"
It was the first ride of many, the first of many blissful days that followed, for Christopher no longer went out and about with his friends. He stayed at home with Marie and Miss Chester.
Sometimes he seemed a little restless and impatient, Marie thought. Often she caught him yawning and looking at the clock as if he were anxiously waiting for something, or for time to pass, but she was too happy to be critical. He was with her often, and that was all that mattered.
And then—quite suddenly—the miracle happened!
It was one Sunday evening—a golden Sunday in June, when London seemed sunbaked and breathless, and one instinctively longed for the sea or the country.
Miss Chester had had friends to tea, but they had gone now, and Chris was prowling round the drawing-room, with its heavy, old- fashioned furniture, hands in pockets, as if he did not know what to do with himself.
10 Half a dozen times he looked at Marie—half a dozen times he took a step towards the door and came back again. There was an oddly nervous expression in his blue eyes, and his careless lips no longer smiled.
Miss Chester had been very silent, too, since the visitors left, and presently, with a little murmured excuse, she gathered up her work and went out of the room.
Chris swallowed hard and ran a finger round his collar, as if he suddenly found it too tight, and his voice sounded all strangled and jerky, when suddenly he said:
"Put on your hat and come out, Marie Celeste! I can't breathe—it's stifling indoors."
He had always called Marie "Marie Celeste" since their childhood. It had been his boy's way of pretending to scorn her French name, but Marie liked it, as she liked everything he chose to do or say.
She rose now with alacrity. She was ready in a few minutes, and they went out together into the deserted streets.
It was very hot still, and Chris suggested they should go down to the Embankment.
"There'll be a breeze," he said.
It was a very silent walk, though Marie did not notice it She was perfectly happy; she was sure that every woman they passed must be envying her for walking with such a companion. Now and then she looked up at him with adoring eyes.
They walked along the Embankment, and away from it towards Westminster Abbey. There was a service going on inside, and through the open doors they could hear the wonderful strains of the organ.
Marie stopped to listen—she loved music, and Chris stopped, too, though he fidgeted restlessly, and drew patterns with his stick on the dusty path at his feet.
When they walked on again he said abruptly:
"We've got on very well since you came home—eh, Marie Celeste?"
Her dark eyes were raised to his face.
"Oh, Chris! Of course!"
He frowned a little.
11 "I mean—do you think we should always get on as well?" he asked, with an effort.
She was miles away from understanding his meaning, but something in his voice set her heart beating fast. When she tried to answer, her voice died away helplessly.
Christopher looked down at her, then he said with a rush: "The fact is—I mean—will you marry me?"
Marie stopped dead. All power of movement had deserted her. A wave of crimson surged over her face, rushing away again and leaving her as white as the little rose which she wore in her black frock.
Chris slipped a hand through her arm. He was afraid that she was going to faint. He was feeling pretty bad himself.
"Well, is it so dreadful to think about?" he asked with a mirthless laugh.
"Dreadful!" She found her voice with a gasp. The sudden rapture that flooded her heart was almost unbearable. But for his arm in hers, she was sure she would have fallen.
There was a seat close by, and Chris made her sit down. He sat beside her and stared at his feet while she recovered a little, then he looked up with a strained smile.
"Well, do you think you could put up with me for the rest of your life?" he asked.
Marie's face was radiant. Nobody could ever have said then that she was not pretty. Her eyes were like stars. She seemed to have blossomed all at once into perfect womanhood.
She wanted to say so many things to him, but no words would come. She just gave him her hand, and his fingers closed hard about it.
For a little they sat without speaking, while through the open doors of the cathedral came the wonderful strains of the organ. Then suddenly it ceased, and Chris took