Elsa Brabourne had been transformed into Elsa Percivale with the assistance of two bishops and a dean. Drawings of her trousseau and of her bridesmaids' dresses had appeared in the ladies' newspapers. Her aunts had given a reception to about a hundred people of whom they had never heard before, and who, in return, had presented the bride with much costly rubbish which she did not want; and at last Leon had carried off his wife, in an ultra-fashionable tailor-made travelling dress, to Folkestone en route for the Continent and Schwannberg.
Claud Cranmer had officiated, somewhat gloomily as best man at this wedding, the courtship of which had been so romantic, the realization so entirely Philistine.
All the technicality and elaboration of this modern London ceremony had been most trying to Percivale, who, as has been said, hated coming before the public as a central figure; and, at this particular marriage, the mysterious bridegroom had, contrary to custom, attracted quite as much notice as the lovely bride.
The young man was beginning dimly to realize that Claud had spoken truly when he said that life now-a-days could be neither a dream nor an ideal. There seemed so much that was commonplace and technical to take the bloom off his romance. He literally panted for his Bavarian home—for foaming river, wide lake, rugged steep, glittering horizon of snow-peaked Alps in which to realize the happiness that he so fervently anticipated. As to Elsa's mental state on her wedding-day, it must be owned that, when the excitement was over—when the admiring crowds were left behind, and she found herself alone with her husband, she was a good deal frightened. She did not understand him in the least. Her nature was so utterly devoid of the least spark of romance or sentiment that she could not interpret his thoughts or his desires. There was a still firmness about him which awed her. Docile as he was, subjugated as he was, there yet had been times during their short engagement when she experienced great uneasiness. Chief of these was the evening when he heard of Osmond Allonby's disappearance. There had been something then in the low, repressed intensity of his manner which had made her quail.
True, she had been able to change his mood in a moment. A couple of her easily-shed tears, lying on her eye-lashes, had brought him to his knees in an agony of repentance. But still there remained always in her mind a kind of rankling conviction that her lover expected of her something which she could not give, because she did not know what it was. When Percivale gave rein to the poetic side of his nature, and talked of sympathies, of high aims, of beauty in one's daily life, he spoke to deaf ears. Vaguely she comforted herself with the reflection that this would last only for a little while. Men had a way of talking like that when they were in love; but, while it lasted, it give her a feeling of discomfort. She could never be at her ease whilst she was in a state of such uncertainty; for uncertainty begets fear.
Her depression was increased by the serious words which her godfather had spoken to her on her wedding-morning. She hated to be spoken to seriously. It was like being scolded—it carried her back to the unloved memories of her dull childhood. Why could he not have given her her gold necklace with a gay declaration that most jewels adorned a white neck, but that in her case the neck would adorn the jewel—or some other such speech—the kind to which her ears were now daily accustomed.
Why did he think it necessary to entreat her never to allow her husband to be disappointed in her? Was it likely that any man could ever be disappointed in her? It seemed more probable that she might one day come to feel bored by him, handsome and eligible though he was.
Somehow, being engaged to him had not quite fulfilled her expectations. More than once she had felt—not exactly consciously, but none the less really—that she was more in touch with Captain St. Quentin, or others of the well-born ordinary young men of the day who formed her set, than with the idealist Leon. He was a creature from another sphere, his thoughts and aims were different, she knew; and, as her own inclinations became daily more clearly defined, she could not help feeling that they grew daily more unlike his.
"But she is so young, he will be able to mould her," said Claud, hopefully to himself. He guessed, more clearly than any one else, that Percivale was mismated; and foresaw with a dim foreboding that a bad time was in store for him when he should discover the fact; but, on his friend's wedding-day, he would not be a skeleton at the feast. He was willing to hope for the best.