So George, hurried away by wife, lawyer, and vicar, did not see Nouna’s first and last signature of her maiden name.
CHAPTER XII.
The minutes that had been wasted in waiting for the vicar before the wedding, and in conversing with Mr. Angelo after it, had placed George Lauriston in a singular position: there was not time enough left to drive with his bride to the apartments he had taken for her in a street near Wilton Place, and then to return to the barracks and put on his uniform before parade. He must either risk being late for his duty for the first time, or miss the pleasure of himself introducing his young wife to her new home. His mind was made up before he reached the church-door. He had a superstition, the more influential that he felt his own weakness where his wife was concerned, against beginning his married life by a breach of discipline.
Bending down over his little bride, who was leaving the church much more sedately than she had entered it, as if the solemnity of the married state had already begun to work its sobering influence upon her, he said, very low and very tenderly: “Nouna, my darling, what would you say if I asked you to go to our new home by yourself and wait for me there? If I told you I could not go there now straight with you without neglecting my duty?”
“Say!” said the small bride, lifting up a dismayed face suddenly, and speaking in a tremulous voice above the pitch usually considered decorous in a church. “Why, I should say, never mind your duty, but come with me.”
George would not accept such a portent as this, natural as the little heart-cry undoubtedly was.
“Oh no, darling, you wouldn’t say that,” he urged, in a hurried whisper. “You wouldn’t like them to say I was a less good soldier because I was married.”
“I shouldn’t care what they said, as long as I had you with me,” persisted Nouna piteously, clinging to his arm, while two tears came to her eyes and allowed themselves to be blinked down her cheeks.
George hesitated. The intoxication was mounting rapidly from heart to head as he looked at her, felt the magnetic pressure of the small fingers. Mr. Angelo, seeing the difficulty, came up with his usual deliberate step and detached the clinging bride with the unemotional dexterity of a machine.
“The Countess would be much annoyed if she thought you would impede your husband in the execution of his duty, Nouna,” said he as drily as ever. “I will take you home, and Mr. Lauriston, I am sure, will need no urging to join you as speedily as possible.”