"Why, yes, didn't you know? I supposed Mrs. Van Rensselaer would tell you all the plans. She said you did not wish to come down to talk them over beforehand."
"I know," said Dawn, a shadow creeping over the happy face. "I could not." She looked at him with appealing eyes, as if she knew he would understand.
"I understood," he answered her. "You had been through too heavy a strain, a shock——" He paused.
She looked puzzled, and wondered how he knew that her marriage was a shock to her. Was it because his eyes understood her from the first? Was it a kind of spirit understanding spirit? Dawn was not a philosopher, but something like this flashed through her thoughts.
"But she told me nothing. Indeed, I did not ask. Perhaps it was my fault," she added.
"Certainly not," said Charles vehemently. "It was her business to tell you the plans. I expressly asked her to do so after we had them all arranged. I asked her to see if they had your approval. I should not have made any arrangements without it."
"Oh!" Dawn had never had her approval of anything asked in her life. She could scarcely understand why it should be done. It was very nice, but how and why did this delightful person seem to have had the arranging of her plans? It was all a mystery, but she could not ask about it now before the coach driver. Perhaps the future would unravel the mystery.
"Just how much did she tell you, any way?" asked Charles, lowering his voice as much as possible, to make it confidential without actually putting it beyond the hearing of the driver.
Dawn considered.
"Why, I don't really think she told me anything," she said at last, half apologetically, "except how to behave during the ceremony. I think it was my fault, I really do. She said I ought to go down and talk it over, but I said I didn't need to go, that I wanted to be by myself at the last. I suppose she thought I didn't care about the arrangements. I never thought I had anything to do with them, any way. I thought that was all fixed, like everything else."