“Besides—to-morrow—when the papers get hold of it—” He shrugged his shoulders. “Will it suffice you to know that I have asked you to assist at a wedding, a wedding for which I am peculiarly responsible?” The tones became cold and implacable. “In fact, you have met the lady before—as you perhaps have guessed, she is my former wife. There are circumstances which make it desirable for all parties to avoid as much publicity as possible. That’s why it’s being solemnized at the place we are going.” He leaned forward and rapped on the window, signaling the driver to stop. “We’ll get out here.”
The taxi drew up in a side street at his orders. Up the avenue in that thronged district of the slums of the upper city which lies on the beginnings of Harlem, O’Leary perceived the tower of a church.
Dangerfield’s moodiness had closed over him again. At a gesture of his, O’Leary followed him into the vestibule. Knowing what he had been able to patch together, he could faintly divine the storm of emotion which swept his companion as the door closed behind them and they entered the dimness of the chapel. There were a bare half-dozen persons—the minister, the couple standing before him by the pulpit, the whole far enough away to be unrecognizable; yet at the sudden letting-in of the noises of the street, each turned with a start. It was as though each had divined who the new arrival must be.
Dangerfield acknowledged the recognition with a short forward bending of his head, but, instead of taking a seat, he remained standing by a pillar, arms folded, immovable; nor in the obscurity was it possible for his companion to judge what emotion predominated. The sounds of the minister’s voice came to them in regular cadences until the decisive words, “I therefore pronounce you man and wife.”
At this, O’Leary, with his eyes still on Dangerfield, saw the arms relax and the head thrown back as though a weight had slipped from the shoulders. The next moment his companion had touched him on the arm and gone out, saying:
“That’s all—come!”
On the sidewalk, Dangerfield seemed to be moving blindly, for he stumbled once and had started off in a direction quite different from the corner where their taxi was waiting, when O’Leary checked him on the arm, saying:
“That’s not the way, man, to your taxi.”
At his touch Dangerfield turned, without seeming realization of where he was.
“What—what taxi?”