Chapter 3

"That is an ancestor," Juliet explained. "Doesn't he give distinction to the room? And isn't the room--well--just a little bit distinguished-looking itself, in spite of its simplicity?--because of it, perhaps. The tables and most of the chairs are what Anthony found left in the old Kentucky homestead after the sale last year, and bought in with--the last of his money." Her eyes were very bright, but her voice was quiet.

Mr. Marcy looked at the furniture in question, stared at the walls, then at the rug on the polished floor. The rug held his attention for two long minutes, then he glanced sharply at his daughter.

"The colourings of that rug are very good, don't you think?" she asked with composure. "It will last until Anthony can afford a better one."

Mr. Marcy turned significantly toward the door of the dining-room, and Juliet led him through. He surveyed the room in silence, laying a hand upon a chair back; then looked suddenly down at the chair and brought his eyeglasses to bear upon it.

"The furniture was made by a country cabinet-maker who charged country prices for doing it. Tony rubbed in a very thin stain and rubbed the wood in oil afterward till it got this soft polish."

The visitor looked incredulous, but he accepted the explanation with a polite though exceedingly slight smile. Then he was taken to inspect the kitchen. From here he was led through the pantry back to the living-room, and so upstairs. He looked, still silently, in at the door of each room, exquisite in its dainty readiness for occupancy. As he studied the blue-and-white room his daughter observed that he retained less of the air of the connoisseur than he had elsewhere exhibited. She had shown him this place last with artful intent. No room in his own homes of luxury could appeal to him with more of beauty than was visible here.

When Mr. Marcy reached the living-room again he found himself placed gently but insistently in the easiest chair the room afforded, close by an open window through which floated all the soft odours of country air blowing lightly across apple orchards and gardens of old-fashioned flowers. His daughter, bringing from the ingle seat a plump cushion, dropped upon it at his feet. But instead of beginning any sort of argument she laid her arm upon his knee, and her head down upon her arm, and became as still as a kitten who has composed itself for sleep. Only through the contact of the warm young arm, her father could feel that she was alive and waiting for his speech.

When he spoke at last it was with grave quiet, in a gentler tone than that which he had used the day before in his own library.

"You helped Anthony furnish this house?"

"Yes, father."

"Do you mind telling me how much you had at your disposal?"

"Five hundred dollars." Juliet maintained her position without moving, and her face was out of sight.

"Did this include the repairs upon the place?"

"Yes--but you know wages are low just now and lumber is cheap. Having no roof to the porch made it inexpensive. The painting Anthony helped at himself. He worked every minute of his two weeks' vacation on whatever would cost most to hire done."

"Anthony worked at painting the house?" There was astonishment in Mr. Marcy's voice. He had known the Robesons of Kentucky all his life. He had never seen one of them lift his hand to do manual labour. There had been no need.

"Yes," said Juliet, and the cheek which rested against her father's knee began to grow warm.

"You have obtained a somewhat extraordinary effect of harmony and comfort inside the house," Mr. Marcy pursued. "It is difficult to understand just how you brought it about with so small an expenditure of money."

It was quite impossible now for Juliet to keep her head down. She looked up eagerly, but she still managed to speak quietly.

"It _is_ effect, father, and it is art--not money. The paper on the wall cost twenty-five cents a roll, but it is the right paper for the place, and the wrong paper at ten times that sum wouldn't give the room such a background of soft restfulness. Then, you see, the old white woodwork is in very good style, and the green walls bring it out. The old floor was easily dressed to give that beautiful waxed finish. They told me how to do that at the best decorator's in Boston. The rug fits the colourings very well. Anthony's old furniture would give any such room dignity. The portrait lends the finishing touch, I think. You see, when you analyse it all there's nothing in the least wonderful. But it looks like a home--doesn't it? And when the little things are in which grow in a home--the photographs, a bowl of sweet-williams from the garden, the lovely old copper lamp you gave me on my birthday--can't you think how dear it will all be?"

Mr. Marcy glanced down keenly into his daughter's face.

"There are a great many things of your own at home which would naturally come into your married home," he said.

Juliet coloured richly. "Yes," she answered with steady eyes, "but except for the lamp, and the photographs, and a few such very little things, I should not bring them. Anthony is poor, but he is very proud. I couldn't hurt him by furnishing his home with the overflow of mine. Besides--I don't need those things. I don't want them. All I want out of the old home is--your love--your blessing, dear!"

The sharp eyes meeting hers softened suddenly. Juliet drew herself to her knees, and leaning forward across her father's lap, reached both arms up and flung them about his neck. He held her close, her head upon his shoulder, and all at once he found the slender figure in his arms shaken with feeling. Juliet was not crying, but she was drawing long, deep breaths like a child who tries to control itself.

"You need have no doubt of either of those things, my little girl," said her father in her ear. "Both are ready. It is only your happiness I want. I distrust the power of any poor man to give it to you. That is all. Since I have seen this house the question looks less doubtful to me--I admit that gladly. But I still am anxious for the future. Even in this attractive place there must be monotony, drudgery, lack of many things you have always had and felt you must have. You have never learned to do without them. I understand that Robeson will not accept them at my hand, nor at yours. I don't know that I think the less of him for that--but--you will have to learn self-denial. I want you to be very sure that you can do it, and that it will be worth while."

There was a little silence, then Juliet gently drew herself away and rose to her feet. She stood looking down at the imposing figure of the elderly man in the chair, and there was something in her face he had never seen there before.

"There's just one thing about it, sir," she said. "I can't possibly spare Anthony Robeson out of my life. I tried to do it, and I know. I would rather live it out in this little home--with him--than share the most promising future with any other man. But there's this you must remember: A man who was brought up to do nothing but ride fine horses, and shoot, and dance, must have something in him to go to work and advance, and earn enough to buy even such a home as this, in five years. He has a future of his own."

Mr. Marcy looked thoughtful. "Yes, that may be true," he said. "I rather think it is."

"And, father----" she bent to lay a roseleaf cheek against his own--"you began with mother in a poorer home than this, and were so happy! Don't I know that?"

"Yes, yes, dear," he sighed. "That's true, too. But we were both poor--had always been so. It was an advance for us--not a coming down."

"It's no coming down for me." There was spirit and fire in the girl's eyes now. "Just to wear less costly clothes--to walk instead of drive--to live on simpler food--what are those things? Look at these," she pointed to the rows of books in the bookcases which lined two walls of the room. "I'm marrying a man of refinement, of family, of the sort of blood that tells. He's an educated man--he loves the things those books stand for. He's good and strong and fine--and if I'm not safe with him I'll never be safe with anybody. But besides all that--I--I love him with all there is of me. Oh--_are_ you satisfied now?"

Blushing furiously she turned away. Her father got to his feet, stood looking after her a moment with something very tender coming into his eyes, then took a step toward her and gathered her into his arms.

VIII.--ON ACCOUNT OF THE TEA-KETTLE

"This is the nineteenth day of August," observed Anthony Robeson. "We finished furnishing the house for my future bride on the third day of the month. Over two weeks have gone by since then. The place must need dusting."

He glanced casually at the figure in white which sat just above him upon the step of the great porch at the back of the Marcy country house. It was past twilight, the moon was not yet up, and only the glow from a distant shaded lamp at the other end of the porch served to give him a hint as to the expression upon his companion's face.

"I'm beginning to lie awake nights," he continued, "trying to remember just how my little home looks. I can't recall whether we set the tea-kettle on the stove or left it in the tin-closet. Can you think?"

"You put it on the stove yourself," said Juliet. "You would have filled it if Auntie Dingley hadn't told you it would rust."

Anthony swerved about upon the heavy oriental rug, which covered the steps, until his back rested against the column; he clasped his arms about one knee, and inclined his head at the precise angle which would enable him to study continuously the shadowy outlines of the face above him, shot across with a ruby ray from the lamp. "I wish I could recollect," he pursued, "whether I left the porch awning up or down. It has rained three times in the two weeks. It ought not to be down."

"I'm sure it isn't," Juliet assured him. There was a hint of laughter in her voice.

"It was rather absurd to put up that awning at all, I suppose. But when you can't afford a roof to your piazza, and compromise on an awning instead, you naturally want to see how it is going to look, and you rush it up. Besides, I think there was a strong impression on my mind that only a few days intervened before our occupancy of the place. It shows how misled one can be."

There was no reply to this observation, made in a depressed tone. After a minute Anthony went on.

"These cares of the householder--they absorb me. I'm always wondering if the lawn needs mowing, and if the new roof leaks. I get anxious about the blinds--do any of them work loose and swing around and bang their lives out in the night? Have the neighbours' chickens rooted up that row of hollyhock seeds? Then those books I placed on the shelves so hurriedly. Are any of them by chance upside down? Is Volume I. elbowed by Volume II. or by Volume VIII.? And I can't get away to see. Coming up here every Saturday night and tearing back every Sunday midnight takes all my time."

"You might spend next Sunday in the new house."

"Alone?"

"Of course. You have so many cares they would keep you from getting lonely."

Anthony made no immediate answer to this suggestion, beyond laughing up at his companion in the dim light for an instant, then growing immediately sober again. But presently he began upon a new aspect of the subject.

"Juliet, are we to be married in church?"

"Tony!--I don't know."

"But what do you think?"

"I--don't think."

"What! Do you mean that?"

"No-o."

"Of course you don't. Well--what about it?"

"I don't know."

"Are we to have a big wedding?"

"Do you want one?"

"I--but that's not the question. Do you want a big wedding?"

She hesitated an instant. Then she answered softly, but with decision: "No."

Anthony drew a long breath. "Thank the Lord!" he said devoutly.

"Why?" she asked in some surprise.

"I've never exactly understood why the boys I've been best man for were so miserable over the prospect of a show wedding--but I know now. A runaway marriage appeals to me now as it never did before. I want to be married--tremendously--but I want to get it over."

A soft laugh answered him. "We'll get it over."

Anthony sat up suddenly. "Will we?" he asked with eagerness. "When?"

"I didn't say 'when'!"

"Juliet--when are you going to say it?"

"Why, Tony--dear----"

"That's right--put in the 'dear,'" he murmured. "I've heard mighty few of 'em yet, and they sound great to me----"

"We've been engaged only two weeks--"

"And two days----"

"And the little house isn't spoiling, even though you're not sure about the tea-kettle and the awning. I--you don't want to hurry things----"

"Don't I!"--rebelliously.

"If I'm very good and say 'Christmas'----"

"'Christmas!'--Great Caesar!"

"But, Tony----"

"Now see here--" he leaned forward and stared up at her, without touching her--he was as yet allowed few of the lover's favours and prized them the more for that--"do you think our case is just like other people's? Here I've been waiting for you all my days--waiting and waiting, and tortured all the time by suspense. Then I lived that month of July with my heart in my mouth--you'll never know what you put me through those days, talking and jollying about 'Eleanor Langham,' and never for one instant, until just that last day, giving me the smallest pinch of hope that it was anything to you except just what it pretended to be. Then--I've been a long time without a home--and the little house--sweetheart--it looks like Heaven to me. Must I stay outside till Christmas--when everything's all ready? Confound it--I don't want to play the pathetic string, and the Lord knows I'm happy as a fellow can be who's got the desire of his life. But----"

A warm hand came gently upon his hair, and for joy at the touch he fell silent. Once he turned his head and put his lips against the white sleeve as it fell near, and looked up an instant with eyes whose expression the person above him felt rather than saw through the subdued light. By and by she took up the conversation.

"So you are rejoiced that I don't want a great wedding?"

"Immensely relieved."

"What would you like best?"

"I don't dare tell you."

"You may."

"Tell me what you would like, Julie."

"Of course father would say the town house, even if it were a small affair. Auntie Dingley would probably agree to having it here--if that were what you--we--wanted--that is----"

Anthony looked up quickly. "Even at Christmas?"

"Why--yes. We could come back. People do that sometimes."

"Yes. Must we do what other people do?"

"Would you rather not?"

"Ten thousand times. It seems to me that the biggest mistake people make is the way they do this thing. Juliet--think of the little house. We made it--you made it. For years, without doubt, it's to hold us and our experiences. Do you know I'd like to give it this one to begin with?--I'm holding my breath!"

Plainly she was holding hers. Her head was turned away--he could just see her profile outlined against the ruby light. And at the moment there were footsteps inside a long French window near at hand which lay open into the library. Mr. Horatio Marcy came out and stood still just behind them.

Anthony sprang to his feet, and came forward up the steps. The older man greeted him cordially. Anthony pulled a big chair into position, and Mr. Marcy sat down. He was smoking and wore an air of relaxation. He and his guest fell to talking, the younger man entering into the conversation with as much ease and spirit as if he were not fresh from what was to him at this hour a much more interesting discussion. Juliet sat quietly and listened.

It grew into an absorbing argument after a little, the two men taking opposite sides of a great governmental question just then claiming public interest. Mrs. Dingley came out and joined the group, and she and Juliet listened with increasing delight in a contest of brains such as was now offered them. Mr. Marcy himself, while he put forth his arguments with conviction and with skill, was evidently enjoying the keen wit and wisdom of his young opponent. The elder man met objection with objection, set up men of straw to be knocked down, and ended at last with a hearty laugh and a frankly appreciative:

"Well, Anthony--you have convinced me of one thing, certainly. There are more sides to the question than I had understood. I will admit that you've made a strong argument. But when I come back I'll down you with fresh material. I shall have plenty of it."

"Are you going away soon, sir?" Anthony asked with some surprise. Mr. Marcy was a frequent traveller, preferring to look after various business interests in faraway ports himself rather than entrust them to others.

"Yes--I shall be off in a few weeks--and for a longer time than usual. I haven't told these ladies of my household yet--but this is as good a time as any. Juliet, little girl--I may be gone all winter this time."

She came quickly to him without speaking, and gave him her regretful answer silently.

"When do you go, Horatio?" Mrs. Dingley asked.

"About the first of October. I hadn't fully decided till to-day. I had thought of inviting you two to go with me."

He looked with a smile at his sister and his daughter, then somewhat quizzically at Anthony. The latter was regarding him with an alert face in which, as nearly as could be made out in the dim light, were no signs of discomfiture.

"Horatio," said Mrs. Dingley, "I wish you would come into the library for a few minutes. This reminds me of a letter I had to-day from one of your old friends, asking when you were to be at home."

The French window closed on the two older people. Juliet, left sitting on the arm of her father's chair, found Anthony behind her.

"Do you want to go on a voyage to the Philippines?" he was asking over her shoulder.

"I'm not sure just what I do want," she answered rather breathlessly.

"The tea-kettle would rust while you were gone."

He got no reply.

"The dust would grow inches deep on the dining-table we polished so carefully."

Juliet rose and walked slowly to the edge of the steps. Anthony followed. "Let's go and walk on the terrace," he proposed, and they ran down to the smooth sward below. It was a warm night, with no dew, and the short-shaven grass was dry. All the stars were out. Anthony walked beside the figure in white, his hands clasped behind his back.

"Do white ruffled curtains like those at our windows ever grow musty from being shut up?" he insinuated gently.

"I don't know."

"Will you write from every port you touch at? It will take a good many letters to satisfy me."

"I suppose so."

"Suppose what? That you will write?"

Juliet stood still. "You're the greatest wheedler I ever saw," she said.

"Is that a compliment?"

"It's not meant for one. What am I to do when I'm----"

"Married to me?--I don't know, poor child. I can only pity you. What do you think the prospect is for me, never to be able to get the smallest concession from you except by every art of coaxing? Yet--if I can get this thing I want, by any means--I warn you I shall not give up until I've seen you sail."

"You'll not see me sail."

He wheeled upon her. He had her hand in his grasp. "And if you don't go?"

"I'll stay."

"With me?"

She laughed irresistibly. "How could I stay without you?"

"Will you marry me before your father goes?"

"Oh, Tony, Tony----"

"We can't be married without his blessing, can we?"

"No--dear father."

"Then----"

"I'll tell you to-morrow," said she.

IX.--A BISHOP AND A HAY-WAGON

Juliet Marcy's prospective maid-of-honour found Anthony Robeson's best man at her elbow the moment she entered the waiting-room of the big railway station. Now, although she greeted him with a charming little conscious look, there was nothing either new or singular about the quiet rush he had made across the waiting-room the instant he saw her. The rest of the party of twenty people who were going down into the country to the Marcy-Robeson wedding understood it perfectly, although the engagement had not been announced and probably would not be until Wayne Carey should have an income decidedly larger than he had at present.

Judith Dearborn joined the group at once, and Carey reluctantly followed her. Judith had a way of joining groups and of giving her betrothed many impatient half-hours thereby.

"Just think of this," she said to the others. "When I knew Juliet had really given in to Anthony Robeson at last I thought I should be asked to assist at an impressive church wedding. But here we are going down to what Tony describes as 'a box of a house' in the most rural of suburbs. If it's really as small as he says even twenty people will be a tight fit."

"How in the world did they come to be married there?" asked the sister of the best man. Everybody had been summoned to this wedding so hurriedly and so informally that nobody knew much about it.

The son of the Bishop--whose father was going down to perform the ceremony--answered promptly:

"Tony tells me its Juliet's own choice. You see they furnished the house together, with her aunt, Mrs. Dingley; and Juliet fell so in love with it that she must needs be married in it. What's occurred to that girl I don't know. After the Robesons of Kentucky lost their money and everything else but their social standing I thought it was all up with Anthony. But he's plucky. He's made a way for himself, and he's won Juliet somehow. He seems to be a late edition of that obstinate chap who remarked 'I will find a way or make one.' By Jove--he must have made one when he convinced Juliet Marcy that she could be happy in a house where twenty people are a tight fit."

When the train stopped at the small station Judith Dearborn said in Wayne Carey's ear, as he glanced wonderingly from the train: "Is this it? Juliet Marcy must be perfectly crazy!"

"She certainly must," admitted Robeson's best man. But he stifled a sigh. If Juliet Marcy could do so crazy a thing as to marry Anthony Robeson on the comparatively small salary that young man--brought up to do nothing at all--was now earning, why must Wayne Carey wait for several times that income before he could have Juliet's closest friend? Was there really such a difference in girls?

But at the next instant he was shouting hilariously, and so was everybody else except the Bishop and the Bishop's wife, who only smiled indulgently. The rest of the party were young people, and their glee brooked no repression. The moment they reached the little platform they comprehended not only that they were coming to a most informal wedding--they were also in for a decidedly novel lark.

Close to the edge of the platform stood a great hay-wagon, cushioned with fragrant hay and garlanded with goldenrod and purple asters. Standing erect on the front, one hand grasping the reins which reached out over a four-in-hand of big, well-groomed, flower-bedecked farm horses, the other waving a triumphant greeting to his friends, was Anthony Robeson, in white from head to foot, his face alight with happiness and fun. He looked like a young king; there could be no other comparison for his splendid outlines as he towered there. And better yet, he looked as he had ever looked, through prosperity and through poverty, like a "Robeson of Kentucky."

Below him, prettier than she had ever been--and that was saying much--her eyes brilliant with the spirit of the day, laughing, dressed also in white, a big white hat drooping over her brown curls, stood Juliet Marcy.

In a storm of salutations and congratulations the guests rushed toward this extraordinary equipage and the radiant pair who were its charioteers. All regrets over the probable commonplaceness of a small country wedding had vanished.