"It isn't likely that he ever asked one before," said Mrs. Freeman, with a double-edged sneer.
The door-bell rang, and the butler ushered in Margaret, who had come to make her farewell call. Mrs. Underwood looked at her in astonishment. Was this the shy, blushing girl who had come from Royalston three short months ago? With such gentle sweetness did she express her gratitude for the elder lady's kind attentions, with such graceful dignity did she wave aside a few awkwardly hinted apologies, above all, so regally beautiful did she look, that Mrs. Underwood felt more than ever that she would be called to account by the parents of such a creature. Margaret had quite forgiven Mrs. Underwood, for, she reasoned, if that lady had done as she ought to have done by her, she would never have had the chance of knowing Al, a contingency too dreadful to contemplate; and her forgiveness added to the superiority of her position. Mrs. Underwood could only reiterate the eternal useless regret of the tempted and fallen: "If things had not happened just when, and how, and as they did!" She envied Mrs. Freeman, who was now in the easiest manner possible plying the young girl with devoted attentions, with large doses of flattery thrown in. Mrs. Freeman, meanwhile, was mentally resolving to call on Margaret before she left town, in which case they could hardly avoid sending her wedding-cards. She foresaw that, as two negatives make an affirmative, Mr. and Mrs. Alcibiades Smith, Jr., might yet be worthy of the honor of her acquaintance.
Margaret's engagement was no primrose path. It was easier for her when her lover was away, for he wrote delightful letters, but they rarely had one happy and undisturbed hour together. Dr. and Mrs. Parke, of course, gave their consent to the marriage; but they did not like it, and did not pretend to. Dr. Parke, who, as is the wont of his profession, placed a high value on physical attractions, and who cared as little for money as any sane man could, hardly restrained his expressions of dislike. "What business," he growled, "had the fellow to ask her?" Mrs. Parke, while trying hard to keep her husband in order, was cold and constrained herself. Being a woman, she thought less of looks, and had learned in her married life to appreciate the value of money. She would have liked Margaret to make a good match; but here was more money by twenty times than she would have asked, had it only been offered by a lover more worthy of her beautiful daughter! And yet, if Margaret would only have been open with her! If she would have frankly said that she was tired of being poor, and could not forego the opportunity of marrying a rich man, who was a good sort of man enough, Mrs. Parke could have understood, and pitied, and forgiven; but to see her put on such an affectation of attachment for him drove her mother nearly wild. Why, she acted as if she were more in love than he was!
The boys had been duly respectful on hearing that their sister's betrothed was a "Harvard man," but grew contemptuous when they found him so unfit for athletics. Relations and friends, and acquaintances of every degree, believed, and still believe, and always will believe, that Margaret's was one of the most mercenary of mercenary marriages. Some blamed her parents for allowing it; others thought that their opposition was feigned, and that they were really forcing poor Margaret into it.
The two younger children, Harry and Winnie, at once adopted their new brother, and stood up stanchly for him on all occasions, and their sister was eternally grateful to them for it. Her only other support came, of all the people in the world, from Ralph Underwood. He could not be best man at the wedding, as he was going abroad with his mother, who was sadly run down and needed change; but he wrote Margaret a straightforward, manly letter, in which he said that he trusted, unworthy as he was, she would admit him to her friendship for Al's sake. He spoke of all he owed to his friend in such a way that Margaret perceived that more had passed in their college days than she ever had been or ever should be told.
The family discomfort came to a climax on the day before the wedding, when the great Alcibiades Smith himself and his wife made their appearance at Royalston. They stayed at the hotel with their suite, but spent the evening with the Parkes to make the acquaintance of their new connections. Old Mr. Smith pronounced Margaret "a bouncer." He had always known, he said, that Al would get some kind of a wife, but never thought it would be such a stunner as this one. It naturally fell to him to be entertained by Dr. Parke, or rather to entertain him, which he did by relating the whole history of the Elixir, from its first invention to the number of million bottles that were put up the last year, winding up every period with, "As you're a medical man yourself, sir." Mrs. Smith was quieter, and though well pleased, a little awe-struck, as her French maid, her authority and terror, had told her, after Mrs. Parke's and Margaret's brief call at the hotel that afternoon, that these were, evidently, "dames très comme il faut." She poured into Mrs. Parke's ear, in a corner, the tale of all Al's early illnesses, and the various treatments he had had for them, till her hearer no longer wondered at their being so little of him; the wonder was, that there was anything left at all. Then, à propos of marriages, she grew confidential and almost tearful about their distresses in the case of their daughter "Luny." She did think Mr. Smith a little to blame for poor Luny's runaway match. There was an Italian count whom she liked, but her father could not be induced to pay his debts, and "a girl must marry somebody, you know," she wound up, with a look at Margaret.
Margaret, in after years, could appreciate the comedy of the situation. It is no wonder if it seemed to her at the time the most gloomily tragical that perverse ingenuity could devise. Al's manner to his parents was perfect. He was very silent; not more, perhaps, than he always was in a room full, but she thought he looked fagged and tired, and wondered how he could bear it. She longed intensely to say something sympathetic to him; but, like most girls on the eve of their marriage, she felt overpowered with shyness. If this dreadful evening ever came to an end, and they were ever married, then she would tell him, once for all, that she loved him all the better for all and everything that he had to bear.
"They will spoil the whole effect," said Mrs. Parke, despondently, as she put the last careful touches to Margaret's wedding-dress. It was a very simple but becoming one of rich plain silk, with a little lace, and the pearl daisies with diamond dewdrops, sent by the bridegroom, accorded with it well. But Mr. Smith, senior, had begged that his gift, or part of it, should be worn on the occasion, and Mrs. Parke now slowly opened a velvet box, in which lay a crescent and a cross. Neither she nor Margaret was accustomed to estimate the price of diamonds, and had they been, they would have seen that these were far beyond their mark.