Will the reader pardon Mr. Bently for expressing himself so grammatically? It was through the force of a long habit, which even passion could not break. It is true that, according to Gerald Griffin, Juno herself, when angry, spoke bad Latin; but then, Juno was a woman.
Allons, donc. We are ourselves interested in this conversation, and are pleased to observe that, though the speaker's moods and tenses are not flagrant, his eyes and cheeks are.
The lady glanced up swiftly with that smile, half shy, half mirthful, with which a woman who knows her power, and means to use it kindly, receives the acknowledgment of it.
“Why should you think coldly of me, or forget me?” she asked.
Mr. Bently met her glance with stern eyes. “Does a man willingly submit to slavery?” he demanded. He had not suspected Marian Willis of coquetry.
She looked down at her work again, the smile fading, but the mouth still sweet, slowly threaded her needle with a rose-pink floss, and said as slowly, “I do not wish you to forget me.”
One who has seen the sun strike through a heavy fog, stop a moment, then fling it asunder, all in silence, without breath of breeze, but making a bright day of a dark one, knows how Mr. Bently's clouded face cleared at those words, and the look of her who spoke them.
No more was said then. Enough is as good as a feast, and both tasted in that moment the full sweetness of a happiness the more perfect because apparently incomplete.
On one point our mind is made up—this story shall not end with a marriage. A marriage there was, at seven o'clock one spring morning, in the little suburban church, with only three visible witnesses; and the marriage feast was—be it said with all reverence and adoration—manna from heaven, the Bread of Angels!
Mrs. Clay was, of course, shocked at this affair. Where was the trousseau, where the fuss, the presents that might have been, the rehearsal at a fashionable church, the organ music, the crowd of dear criticising friends, the reception, cake and wine, journey, what not—all the parade, weariness, and extravagance which have so often changed a sacrament into a ceremony? Where, indeed? They had no existence outside of the lady's disappointed wishes.