When the priest, a Spaniard of ascetic and noble countenance, had arrived and was embarked upon the marriage ceremony, Judge Barton took himself to task for the flutter of nervousness which, to his great discomfiture, he found obtruding into his judicial reflections. He had come to satisfy a very natural curiosity, and the affair had taken his sympathies unaware. He had never before attended a wedding in which the seriousness of matrimonial experiment appealed to him so strongly. He never before had felt the solemn happiness which his sympathy with that bride and groom awoke in him. He stole a glance at the other witnesses; they were as preternaturally grave as he. There was even a subdued air about Collingwood, full, however, of reserved triumph. As for the bride, her pallor and fatigue were quite evident, but she had an uplifted look which was most attractive. He caught himself wondering if there would be any kissing the bride, and then he decided it was time to rein in his imagination. “Emotions by the quart!” he thought to himself. “Have I turned sentimental old woman? Champagne wouldn’t make me more maudlin.”
He waited quite discreetly after the ceremony, till the young men and the group of nurses had had their say, and it had been clearly demonstrated that there would be no kissing. Then he went up and offered Mrs. Collingwood his hand. There was a genuine friendliness in his manner, a warmth and sincerity in his few words that touched her. Her own reserve melted before them. He saw her eyes suffuse, and a faint color glow in her cheek.
She was instantly aware, indeed, that she occupied a new plane in his thoughts. She had gained upon him personally, and, as the wife of a man engaged in developing one of the greatest resources of the islands, and likely to become a factor of local commercial life, she would receive consideration. She knew that he regarded her marriage as a mésalliance, yet by making a mésalliance she had become a person to be taken into account. Stranger situations than this happen frequently in the world—in the governmental world—and Mrs. Collingwood did not betray her intuitions.
“Well, Judge,” said Martin jocosely, “the Bureau of Health did not bear down on us after all.”
“No; you are a Benedict, Collingwood, and ‘whom the Lord hath joined’—I don’t know whether it is in your service or not. My Latin is rusty.”
“‘Let no man, not even a Civil Commissioner, put asunder,’” Collingwood finished for him. The Judge suspected that he felt some relief in having the possibility of a change of mind on his bride’s part obviated, and the two men smiled at each other openly.
“I feel that my troubles are ended,” said Collingwood.
His wife betrayed that she was still somewhat self-conscious. “It remains for Judge Barton to be trite and to warn you that they have just begun,” she said, a little stiltedly.
“Nonsense! What does it matter whether your troubles are beginning or ending? The point is that you have your present, your romance. I dare say you will have your troubles—most of us do; but to-day—” The speaker paused expressively.
“That is an extremely sensible view,” replied Mrs. Collingwood. “He has not your happy gift of expression, but it is Mr. Collingwood’s also. He told me as much yesterday. I had been foolish enough to anticipate the future.”