“Come! let us be off at once,” said Clara, gayly. “I don’t like this aspect of indecision in Mrs. Buzzell. It means anything but business.”
Dan came occasionally and sat near them during the journey. He said he had “seen the parson and arranged everything all right.” Susie kept her veil down all the time. On arriving at the terminus, Dan sent them to the ladies’ room in the station, having some matter of business to attend to, and then joined them and conducted them in a carriage to a hotel, though the distance was exceedingly short, and into a fine private room, where an elegant dinner for three was already waiting. Clara tried to be gay, and really could have been so but for Susie, who trembled like a leaf and looked very pale. Clara removed Susie’s hat and shawl, and said a thousand reassuring words. Susie tried hard to respond. Clara saw with pain the effort, and pitied Susie more than ever. Here the waiter appeared, his napkin over his arm, and asked if he should serve the dinner. Clara whispered to Dan to put it off, if he could, a few minutes, and for mercy’s sake to say something comforting to Susie.
“You may wait ten minutes,” said Dan to the waiter; “but bring the wine at once.”
“Gay wedding, sis. Don’t you think so?”
“Oh, don’t mind my feeling a little ill,” said Susie, with an effort. “I feel a little better already.” Dan expressed himself as being “hungry as a wolf,” and no doubt he was. He had, in the simple ignorance of his nature, thought a nice dinner would please Clara and Susie, and felt a little savage to have it put off; therefore, more perhaps from hunger than anything else, he went and sat down by Susie, and took her hand in his. Tears, tears forever! What could the poor child do but cry? Dan was a little touched, and made a very praiseworthy attempt to soothe her.
“Oh, I wish I could cry them all out,” said Susie, wiping her eyes. “You are so good, both of you, to have so much patience with me. There!” she said, laughing dismally, “I believe there are no more.”
When the champagne came—of course Dan had provided that—he poured it out copiously and dismissed the waiter. He insisted upon both Susie and Clara drinking, and, fearing to displease him, they assented. No sooner were their glasses half empty than he refilled them; and then the soup was served. With the second course the waiter brought more champagne, and when he left Clara exclaimed, good-naturedly, “Mercy! Dan, you are not expecting us to drink any more?”
“Why not? It seems we need something to keep our courage screwed up to the sticking point.”
“Oh, our courage is in no danger of failing, is it, Susie? Think of it! In an hour or so you will be a lawful and wedded wife; and oh! you don’t know how much more I shall respect you! Only a nice little bit of juggling, and honor will come out of dishonor, like Jack out of his box.” After awhile Susie talked a little, though she could eat nothing after the soup. Dan’s spirits rose mightily with the second bottle of champagne, and he began to be even sentimental to Susie, who took the liberty, after a while, to beg him to not drink any more champagne.
“What’s two bottles of champagne on your wedding-day?” he roared. “Did you ever hear how they drink whisky in Texas? A friend of mine was traveling out there last winter, and he stopped at a half-way house, and found they had not a drop; but they told him the widow Smith, living a mile further on, had a barrel the Saturday before. He would get plenty there. So he rode on, and driving up to the door, sung out. A woman poked her head out of the door and asked what he wanted. He told her he wanted something to drink. She told him she had not a thing to drink in the house. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘they told me back here that you had a barrel of whisky last Saturday.’