IX.—A Bishop and a Hay-Wagon
Juliet Marcy’s prospective maid-of-honour found Anthony Robeson’s best man at her elbow the moment she entered the waiting-room of the big railway station. Now, although she greeted him with a charming little conscious look, there was nothing either new or singular about the quiet rush he had made across the waiting-room the instant he saw her. The rest of the party of twenty people who were going down into the country to the Marcy-Robeson wedding understood it perfectly, although the engagement had not been announced and probably would not be until Wayne Carey should have an income decidedly larger than he had at present.
Judith Dearborn joined the group at once, and Carey reluctantly followed her. Judith had a way of joining groups and of giving her betrothed many impatient half-hours thereby.
“Just think of this,” she said to the others. “When I knew Juliet had really given in to Anthony Robeson at last I thought I should be asked to assist at an impressive church wedding. But here we are going down to what Tony describes as ‘a box of a house’ in the most rural of suburbs. If it’s really as small as he says even twenty people will be a tight fit.”
“How in the world did they come to be married there?” asked the sister of the best man. Everybody had been summoned to this wedding so hurriedly and so informally that nobody knew much about it.
The son of the Bishop—whose father was going down to perform the ceremony—answered promptly:
“Tony tells me its Juliet’s own choice. You see they furnished the house together, with her aunt, Mrs. Dingley; and Juliet fell so in love with it that she must needs be married in it. What’s occurred to that girl I don’t know. After the Robesons of Kentucky lost their money and everything else but their social standing I thought it was all up with Anthony. But he’s plucky. He’s made a way for himself, and he’s won Juliet somehow. He seems to be a late edition of that obstinate chap who remarked ‘I will find a way or make one.’ By Jove—he must have made one when he convinced Juliet Marcy that she could be happy in a house where twenty people are a tight fit.”
When the train stopped at the small station Judith Dearborn said in Wayne Carey’s ear, as he glanced wonderingly from the train: “Is this it? Juliet Marcy must be perfectly crazy!”