course! How could I help it? It simply made me wonder what it was all about.”
With a great effort he tried to pull himself together.
“I’m going to tell you the whole story, Myra.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Well, it starts with my mother—my real one, not the woman with those idiotic dogs; she’s an invalid and I’m her only child. Her one idea in life has always been for me to make a fitting match, and her idea of a fitting match centers round social position in England. Her greatest disappointment was that I wasn’t a girl so I could marry a title, instead she wanted to drag me to England—marry me off to the sister of an earl or the daughter of a duke. Why, before she’d let me stay up here alone this fall she made me promise I wouldn’t go to see any girl more than twice. And then I met you.”
He paused for a second and continued earnestly: “You were the first girl in my life whom I ever thought of marrying. You intoxicated me, Myra. It was just as though you were making me love you by some invisible force.”
“I was,” murmured Myra.
“Well, that first intoxication lasted a week, and then one day a letter came from mother saying she was bringing home some wonderful English girl, Lady Helena Something-or-Other. And the same day a man told me that he’d heard I’d been caught by the most famous husband hunter in New York. Well, between these two things I went half crazy. I came into town to see you and call it off—got as far as the Biltmore entrance and didn’t dare. I started wandering down Fifth Avenue like a wild man, and then I met Kelly. I told him the whole story—and within an hour we’d hatched up this ghastly plan. It was his plan—all the details. His histrionic instinct got the better of him and he had me thinking it was the kindest way out.”
“Finish,” commanded Myra crisply.
“Well, it went splendidly, we thought. Everything—the station meeting, the dinner scene, the scream in the night, the vaudeville—though I thought that was a little too much—until—until——Oh, Myra, when you fainted under that picture and I held you there in my arms, helpless as a baby, I knew I loved you. I was sorry then, Myra.”
There was a long pause while she sat motionless, her hands still clasping her knees—then he burst out with a wild plea of passionate sincerity.
“Myra!” he cried. “If by any possible chance you can bring yourself to forgive and forget I’ll marry you when you say, let my family go to the devil, and love you all my life.”
For a long while she considered, and Knowleton rose and began pacing nervously up and down the aisle of bare bushes his hands in his pockets, his tired eyes pathetic now, and full of dull appeal. And then she came to a decision.
“You’re perfectly sure?” she asked calmly.
“Yes.”
“Very well, I’ll marry you to-day.”
With her words the atmosphere cleared and his troubles seemed to fall from him like a ragged cloak. An Indian summer sun drifted out from behind the gray clouds and the dry bushes rustled gently in the breeze.
“It was a bad mistake,” she continued, “but if you’re sure you love me now, that’s the main thing. We’ll go to town this morning get a license, and I’ll call up my cousin, who’s a minister in the First Presbyterian Church. We can go West to-night.”
“Myra!” he cried jubilantly. “You’re a marvel and I’m not fit to tie your shoe strings. I’m going to make up to you for this, darling girl.”
And taking her supple body in his arms he covered her face with kisses.
The next two hours passed in a whirl. Myra went to the telephone and called her cousin, and then rushed upstairs to pack. When she came down a shining roadster was waiting miraculously in the drive and by ten o’clock they were bowling happily toward the City.
They stopped for a few minutes at the City Hall and again at the jeweler’s, and then they were in the house of the Reverend Walter Gregory on Sixty-ninth Street, where a sanctimonious gentleman with twinkling eyes and a slight stutter received them cordially and urged them to a breakfast of bacon and eggs before the ceremony.
On the way to the station they stopped only long enough to wire Knowleton’s father, and then they were sitting in their compartment on the Broadway Limited.
“Darn!” exclaimed Myra. “I forgot my bag. Left it at Cousin Walter’s in the excitement.”
“Never mind. We can get a whole new outfit in Chicago.”
She glanced at her wrist watch.
“I’ve got time to telephone him to send it on.”
She rose.
“Don’t be long, dear.”
She leaned down and kissed his forehead.
“You know I couldn’t. Two minutes, honey.”
Outside Myra ran swiftly along the platform and up the steel stairs to the great waiting room, where a man met her—a twinkly-eyed man with a slight stutter.
“How d-did it go, M-myra?”
“Fine! Oh, Walter, you were splendid! I almost wish you’d join the ministry so you could officiate when I do get married.”
“Well—I r-rehearsed for half an hour after I g-got your telephone call.”
“Wish we’d had more time. I’d have had him lease an apartment and buy furniture.”
“H’m,” chuckled Walter. “Wonder how far he’ll go on his honeymoon.”
“Oh, he’ll think I’m on the train till he gets to Elizabeth.” She shook her little fist at the great contour of the marble dome. “Oh, he’s getting off too easy—far too easy!”
“I haven’t f—figured out what the f—fellow did to you, M—myra.”
“You never will, I hope.”
They had reached the side drive and he hailed her a taxicab.
“You’re an angel!” beamed Myra. “And I can’t thank you enough.”
“Well, any time I can be of use t—to you——By the way, what are you going to do with all the rings?”
Myra looked laughingly at her hand.
“That’s the question,” she said. “I may send them to Lady Helena Something-or-Other—and—well, I’ve always had a strong penchant for souvenirs. Tell the driver ‘Biltmore,’ Walter.”
— ◆ —
The Smilers.
(The Smart Set, June 1920)
I.
