The clergyman who was to perform the ceremony had been the one to baptize both Jerry and Danny as infants. He had already taken his place before the rose bank. Near him Danny, accompanied by his brother, Robert, his best man, awaited the coming of the bride. Danny’s serious moments of life had been thus far rare. His impish smile was more apt than not to be in evidence wherever he went. There was now no sign of it on his gravely-earnest features as he stood waiting for Jerry. Seriousness vastly became frolicksome Danny, making him handsome in spite of his freckles.
As the white-robed bride, the little girl with whom he had grown up, came toward him in her brave snowy array, the eyes of the pair met. Jerry saw the light of love leap into her bridegroom’s eyes like a flashing, sacramental flame, and was blushingly content. She had at last succeeded in making “some impression” upon Danny.
CHAPTER VI
THE HIGH TRYST
The space on each side of the ribboned aisle from its beginning at the foot of the staircase to its terminus in front of the rose bank was thronged with guests. Came a subdued murmur from the friendly assemblage and a great craning of necks as the bridal cortége passed through the ribboned lane on its way to the altar.
The musicians had been stationed just inside the wide double doorway between the hall and the salon. Despite the stellar role which had been assigned to Jerry in the drama of Romance she managed to turn her head toward the orchestra, sending a fleeting, affectionate glance toward the slender golden-haired young woman smiling radiantly at her from a seat among the musicians.
Immediately the procession had passed the orchestra, Constance and Laurie rose and followed in order to join a certain small group of persons who were standing a little at the right of the altar. It comprised Mrs. Macy, Mr. and Mrs. Dean, Mr. and Mrs. Seabrooke and Jerry’s Sanford married chums, together with their husbands. There was Irma Linton, now Irma Norwood, and her ever devoted cavalier of high-school days, the “Crane.” Connie and Laurie, Marjorie and Hal, and Susan Atwell, now Susan Armstrong, with her tall bronzed western mate. Of the original sextette of Sanford youngsters who had been such famous pals Muriel Harding Lenox and her husband alone were missing. Jerry and Danny had been united in their desire to have near them during the ceremony those who had ever been, and would ever be, to them, their nearest, and dearest.
Followed the breathless hush which invariably precedes the momentous interval between the cessation of the wedding march and the beginning of the sacred ceremony of marriage. Followed the minister’s deep, resonant enunciation of “Dearly beloved,” as he took up the solemn words of the ceremony.
Marjorie alone heard Hal’s “Dearest,” murmured in her ear as one of his hands closed tenderly over her slim fingers. She returned the fervent pressure, a quick mist of tears blurring her eyes. Hal had put an infinity of meaning into that one murmured word of endearment, given to her alone to understand.
“My own dear wife,” Danny was saying to Jerry as he kissed her with a smile which Jerry ever after fondly cherished as the most beautiful smile she had ever seen on a man’s face.