“Happy tears,” answered Mrs. Sherrington Trimm in a voice trembling with emotion. Then she turned and swiftly entered the drawing-room, leaving him alone in the verandah in the darkness.
“So the die is cast, and I am to marry Mamie,” he thought, as soon as she was gone.
In the first moments it was hard to realise that he had bound himself by an engagement from which he could not draw back, and that so soon after he had broken with Constance Fearing. Five months had not gone by since the first of May, since he had believed that his life was ruined and his heart broken. What had there been in his love for Constance which had made it unreal from first to last, real only in the moment of disappointment? He found no answer to the question, and he thought of Mamie, his future wife. Yes, Totty was right. So far as it was possible to judge they were suited to each other in all respects except in his own lack of fortune. “Suited” was the very word. He would never feel what he had felt for the other, the tenderness, the devotion, the dependence on her words for his daily happiness—he might own it now, the sweet fear of hurting her or offending her, which he had only half understood. Constance had dominated him during their intercourse, and until he had seen her real weakness. With Mamie it would be different. She clung to him, not he to her. She looked up to him as a superior, he could never worship her as an idol. He was to occupy the shrine henceforth and he was to play the god and smile upon her when she offered incense. There could not be two images in two shrines, smiling and burning perfumes at each other. George smiled at the idea. But there was to be something else, something he had only lately begun to know. He was to be devotedly loved by some one, tenderly thought of, tenderly treated by one who now, at least, held the first place in his heart. That was very different from what he had hitherto received, the perpetual denial of love, the repeated assurances of friendship. He thought of that wonderful expression which he had seen two or three times on Mamie’s face, and he was happy. There was nothing he would not do, nothing he would not sacrifice for the sake of receiving such love as that.
He slept peacefully through the night, undisturbed by visions of future trouble or dreams of coming disappointment. Nor had his mood changed when he awoke in the morning and gazed through the open windows at the trees beyond the river, where Constance’s house was hidden. Would Constance be sorry to hear the news? Probably not. She would meet him with renewed offers of eternal friendship, and would in all probability come to the wedding. She had never felt anything for him. His lip curled scornfully as he turned away.
Early in the morning Totty entered her daughter’s room. There was nothing extraordinary in the visit, and Mamie, who was doing her hair, did not look round, though she greeted her mother with a word of welcome. Totty kissed her with unwonted tenderness, even considering that she was usually demonstrative in her affections.
“Dear child,” she said, “I just came in to see how you had slept. You need not go away,” she added, addressing the maid. “You are a little pale, Mamie. But then you always are and it is becoming to you. What shall you wear to-day? It is very warm again—you might put on white, almost.”
“Conny Fearing always wears white,” Mamie answered.
“Why, she is in mourning of course,” said Mrs. Trimm with some solemnity.
“Is she? For her brother-in-law? Well, she always did, which is the same thing, exactly. She had on a white frock on the day of the accident. I can see her now!”
“Oh then, by all means wear something else,” said Totty with alacrity. “You might try that striped flannel costume—or the skirt with a blouse, you know. That is new.”