The Dim Lantern. Temple Bailey
gowns were exquisite—but unobtrusive. The color scheme was blue and silver—and the flowers, forget-me-nots and sweet peas. “It’s a bit old-fashioned,” Edith said, “but I hate sensational effects.”
Neither the sheep nor the goats agreed with her. Their ideas were different—the goats holding out for something impressionistic, the sheep for ceremonial splendor.
There was to be a wedding breakfast at the house. Things were therefore given over early to the decorators and caterers, and coffee and rolls were served in everybody’s room. Belated wedding presents kept coming, and Edith and her bridal attendants might be seen at all times on the stairs or in the hall in silken morning coats and delicious caps.
When the wedding bouquet arrived Edith sought out her uncle in his study on the second floor.
“Look at this,” she said; “how in the world did it happen that he sent white violets? Did you tell him, Uncle Fred?”
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Cross my heart.”
They had had their joke about Del’s orchids. “If he knew how I hated them,” Edith would say, and Uncle Fred would answer, “Why don’t you tell him?”
But she had never told, because after all it didn’t much matter, and if Delafield felt that orchids were the proper thing, why muddle up his mind with her preferences?
“Anyhow,” she said now, “I am glad my wedding bouquet is different.” As she stood there, lovely in her sheer draperies, the fragrant mass of flowers in her arms, her eyes looked at him over the top, wistfully. “Uncle Fred,” she asked, unexpectedly, “do you love me?”
“Of course——”
“Please don’t say it that way——” Her voice caught.
“How shall I say it?”
“As if you—cared.”
He stood up and put his hands on her shoulders. “My dear child,” he said, “I do.”
“You’ve been no end good to me,” she said, and dropped the bouquet on a chair and clung to him, sobbing.
He held her in his arms and soothed her. “Being a bride is a bit nerve-racking.”
She nodded. “And I mustn’t let my eyes get red.”
She kissed him shyly on the cheek. They had never indulged much in kisses. He felt if she had always been as sweetly feminine, he should have been sorry to have her marry.
He did not see her again until she was in her wedding gown, composed and smiling.
“Has Del called you up?” he asked her.
“No, why should he?”
He laughed. “Oh, well, you’ll have plenty to say to each other afterward.” But the thought intruded that with such a bride a man might show himself, on this day of days, ardent and eager.
Rosalind and Helen and Margaret, shimmering, opalescent, their young eyes radiant under their wide hats, joined the other bridesmaids in the great limousine which was to take them to the church. Cousin Annabel went with other cousins. Edith and her uncle were alone in their car. Frederick’s man, Briggs, who had been the family coachman in the days of horses, drove them.
Washington was shining under the winter sun as they whirled through the streets to the old church. “Happy is the bride the sun shines on,” said Frederick, feeling rather foolish. It was somewhat difficult to talk naturally to this smiling beauty in her bridal white. She seemed miles removed from the aggressive maiden with whom he had fought and made up and fought again.
The wedding party was assembled in one of the side rooms. Belated guests trickled in a thin stream towards the great doors that opened and shut to admit them to the main auditorium. A group of servants, laden with wraps, stood at the foot of the stairs. As soon as the procession started they would go up into the gallery to view the ceremony.
In the small room was almost overpowering fragrance. The bridesmaids, in the filtered light, were a blur of rose and blue and white. There was much laughter, the sound of the organ through the thick walls.
Then the ushers came in.
“Where’s Del?”
The bridegroom was, it seemed, delayed. They waited.
“Shall we telephone, Mr. Towne?” someone asked at last.
Frederick nodded. He and his niece stood apart from the rest. Edith was smiling but had little to say. She seemed separated from the others by the fact of the approaching mystery.
The laughter had ceased; above the whispers came the tremulous echo of the organ.
The usher who had gone to the telephone returned and drew Towne aside.
“There’s something queer about it. I can’t get Del or Bob. They may be on the way. But the clerk seemed reticent.”
“I’ll go to the ’phone myself,” said Frederick. “Where is it?”
But he was saved the effort, for someone, watching at the door, said, “Here they come,” and the room seemed to sigh with relief as Bob Sterling entered.
No one was with him, and he wore a worried frown.
“May I speak to you, Mr. Towne?” he asked.
Edith was standing by the window looking out at the old churchyard. The uneasiness which had infected the others had not touched her. Slender and white she stood waiting. In a few minutes Del would walk up the aisle with her and they would be married. In her mind that program was as fixed as the stars.
And now her uncle approached and said something. “Edith, Del isn’t coming——”
“Is he ill?”
“I wish to Heaven he were dead.”
“What do you mean, Uncle Fred?”
“I’ll tell you—presently. But we must get away from this——”
His glance took in the changed scene. A blight had swept over those high young heads. Two of the bridesmaids were crying. The ushers had withdrawn into a huddled group. The servants were staring—uncertain what to do.
Somebody got Briggs and the big car to the door.
Shut into it, Towne told Edith:
“He’s backed out of it. He left—this.” He had a note in his hand. “It was written to Bob Sterling. Bob was with him at breakfast time, and when he came back, this was on Del’s dresser.”
She read it, her blue eyes hot:
“I can’t go through with it, Bob. I know it’s a rotten trick, but time will prove that I am right. And Edith will thank me.
“Del.”
She crushed it in her hand. “Where has he gone?”
“South, probably, on his yacht.”
“Wasn’t there any word for me?”
“No.”
“Is there any other—woman?”
“It looks like it. Bob is utterly at sea. So is everybody else.”
All of her but her eyes seemed frozen. The great bouquet lay at her feet where she had dropped it. Her hands were clenched.
Towne laid his hand on hers. “My dear—it’s dreadful.”
“Don’t——”
“Don’t what?”
“Be sorry.”
“But he’s a cur——”
“It doesn’t do any good to call him names,