“Oh, beautiful! lovely!” cried Celia, ecstatically, “come sit down on the couch and tell me about it. We can work faster afterward if we get it off our minds. Was your chief very much shocked that you were married without his permission or knowledge?”
“Why, that was the best of all. I didn’t have to tell him I was married. And he is not to know until just as I sail. He need never know how it all happened. It isn’t his business and it would be hard to explain. No one need ever know except your mother and brother unless you wish them to, dear.”
“Oh, I am so glad and relieved,” said Celia, delightedly. “I’ve been worrying about that a little,—what people would think of us,—for of course we couldn’t possibly explain it all out as it is to us. They would always be watching us to see if we really cared for each other; and suspecting that we didn’t, and it would be horrid. I think it is our own precious secret, and nobody but mamma and Jeff have a right to know, don’t you?”
“I certainly do, and I was casting about in my mind as I went into the office how I could manage not to tell the chief, when what did he do but spring a proposition on me to go at once to New York and identify those men. He apologized tremendously for having to send me right back again, but said it was necessary. I told him it just suited me for I had affairs of my own that I had not had time to attend to when I was there, and would be glad to go back and see to them. That let me out on the wedding question for it would be only necessary to tell him I was married when I got back. He would never ask when.”
“But the announcements,” said Celia catching her breath laughingly, “I never thought of that. We’ll just have to have some kind of announcements or my friends will not understand about my new name; and we’ll have to send him one, won’t we?”
“Why, I don’t know. Couldn’t we get along without announcements? You can explain to your intimate friends, and the others won’t ever remember the name after a few months—we’ll not be likely to meet many of them right away. I’ll write to my chief and tell him informally leaving out the date entirely. He won’t miss it. If we have announcements at all we needn’t send him one. He wouldn’t be likely ever to see one any other way, or to notice the date. I think we can manage that matter. We’ll talk it over with your—” he hesitated and then smiling tenderly added, “we’ll talk it over with mother. How good it sounds to say that. I never knew my mother you know.”
Celia nestled her hands in his and murmured, “Oh, I am so happy,—so happy! But I don’t understand how you got a wedding trip without telling your chief about our marriage.”
“Easy as anything. He asked me if I would mind running across the water to attend to a matter for the service and said I might have extra time while there for a vacation. He never suspects that vacation is to be used as a wedding trip. I’ll write him, or ’phone him the night we leave New York. I may have to stay in the city two or three days to get this Holman matter settled, and then we can be off. In the meantime you can spend the time reconciling your mother to her new son. Do you think we’ll have a very hard time explaining matters to her?”
“Not a bit,” said Celia, gaily. “She never did like George. It was the only thing we ever disagreed about, my marrying him. She suspected all the time I wasn’t happy and couldn’t understand why I insisted on marrying him when I hadn’t seen him for ten years. She begged me to wait until he had been back in the country for a year or two, but he would not hear to such a thing and threatened to carry out his worst at once.”
Gordon’s heart suddenly contracted with righteous wrath over the cowardliness of the man who sought to gain his own ends by intimidating a woman,—and this woman, so dear, so beautiful, so lovely in her nature. It seemed the man’s heart must indeed be black to have done what he did. He mentally resolved to search him out and bring him to justice as soon as he reached New York. It puzzled him to understand how easily he seemed to have abandoned his purposes. Perhaps after all he was more of a coward than they thought, and had not dared to remain in the country when he found that Celia had braved his wrath and married another man. He would find out about him and set the girl’s heart at rest just as soon as possible, that any embarrassment at some future time might be avoided. Gordon stooped and kissed his wife again, a caress that seemed to promise all reparation for the past.