CHAPTER VII
Sheila had been married several months before she ceased to expect a miracle.
She had believed that moment of high rapture when, with Ted's face hidden against her breast, she had seemed to grasp life itself in her ardent young hands, to be but the forerunner of greater moments—of raptures and fulfillments compared to which the first awakening would appear no more than a pale shadow of joy.
Marriage, in some way mysterious and beautiful, would surely alter the world for her; nay, more, would transmute her own nature into something stronger, richer, happier, a wedded nature, wedded in its lightest moods, its deepest fastnesses. She would wear Ted's ring upon her very soul, and her soul would thereby be changed and glorified.
Other wives—all wives, indeed, who marry at the dictates of their hearts—expect as much. It is the way of women to dream and hope above the earth's level, and now and then, in a rarely perfect mating or in motherhood, their dreams come true. But oftenest they wait as Sheila waited—unrewarded. And after awhile they return contentedly to the lowland of everyday reality—where many paths are pleasant and their fellow travelers, though not knights errant, are usually faithful and kind.
This, after a few months, Sheila did, too. By that time she had begun to regard the first moment of acknowledged love as unique, one from which she had no right to ask more than itself. It was enough to have had it. It had been life—of that she was still convinced—but life at its high tide. And the very existence of every day—of tranquil affection and homely duty—was none the less life, too, and good after its own fashion.
So, missing the miracle, she set to work to discover a miracle in what she had; to find exquisite meanings in the fire upon her wedded hearth while her wedded soul remained cold and virginal. And she had the better chance to warm herself beside that fire because it never occurred to her that Ted might be in the least responsible for its limitations.
About her choice of a husband—or rather, her acceptance of the husband whom fate had chosen for her—she had no misgivings.
"Oh, Sheila, are you sure?" Mrs. Caldwell had inquired again and again in that heart-searching hour which had preceded her sanction of the engagement. "Are you sure?"