I watched him hurry up the garden-steps and out of the gateway. He turned once and waved his hand to the pitiful little wind-blown creature he left behind in the bleak unbeautiful garden. I felt as if he had torn me from my moorings and that I must toss and drift in strange unknown seas until to-morrow at three.
I managed to gather my bundles together somehow, and come up here to the house. My cheeks were flaming when I opened the door. I left my packages in a chair in the hall and hurried up here to my room as quickly as I could. Once here I locked my door tight and threw off my things. "Oh, don't be silly; don't be absurd," I said, and buried my face in the dark of my arms on my desk. "It's just Dr. Maynard," I went on later, "and you know how you felt two years ago. Oh, be reasonable. Be calm." But all the time that I was talking sense to myself, I was feeling strong arms about my shoulders, and a kind of sinking, fainting, going-out feeling that people must experience when they lose consciousness, would steal over me so that I couldn't think.
Finally to put an end to my nonsense I opened a secret compartment and took out Robert Dwinnell's picture. He would cure me of my delusion; he would keep me true to my ideals. I gazed at Robert Dwinnell for a solid sixty seconds, then deliberately, straight across the forehead, down the nose, through the very smile that once had thrilled me, I tore that poor picture into a thousand bits, and dumped the remains into the waste-basket. It was a dreadful act. I felt like a murderess. I don't know what made me do it, but Robert Dwinnell had lost his charm. Dr. Maynard, glowing with health, his eyes fierce with a tenderness that actually hurt, made my poor old idol look flat and insipid.
Some time later—ten minutes perhaps—an hour—I don't know—a maid knocked and asked if I were coming down to dinner. I got up and followed her mechanically, and for the life of me I don't know whether there was roast-beef or lamb.
Now I am again locked in my room, and my soul is actually on fire. It is as dark as death outdoors. Every one in the house is asleep. But I am sitting here gazing at a little faded picture of an automobile which I finally discovered in an old souvenir-book of mine. That little speck there is Dr. Maynard and I am going to see him to-day at three!
CHAPTER XVI
EVER since I can remember having any ideas on the subject at all, I have always longed to be married in one of those dark, little tucked-away chapels in some cathedral or other, in France or England, like a girl I read about in a book. Perhaps a late afternoon service would be going on up near the big altar; candles would be burning; the priest would be chanting queer minor things; poor women would be stepping in, crossing themselves, to say a prayer; and, all unconscious of me, nearly hidden by the big stone pillars, tourists would be tip-toeing about, gazing at the rose-window and the towering arches. There would be footfalls and whispers in the nave. Echoes everywhere. I should have loved the echoes! "But then," Edith said, "you wouldn't have had a sign of a wedding present, and you can't furnish your house with echoes, crazy Bobbs."
If ever there was a wedding opposite to my ideal of one, it was mine. For of course I am married to Dr. Maynard.