The next morning quite early the ’phone called Gordon to the office.
The chief’s secretary said the matter was urgent.
He hurried away leaving Celia somewhat anxious lest their plans for
going to New York that day could not be carried out, but she made up
her mind not to fret even if the trip had to be put off a little, and
solaced herself with a short visit with her mother over the telephone.
Gordon entered his chief’s office a trifle anxiously, for he felt that
in justice to his wife he ought to take her right back to New York and
get matters there adjusted; but he feared that there would be business
to hold him at home until the Holman matter was settled.
The chief greeted him affably and bade him sit down.
“I am sorry to have called you up so early,” he said, “but we needed
you. The fact is, they’ve arrested Holman and five other men, and you
are in immediate demand to identify them. Would it be asking too much
of an already overworked man to send you back to New York to-day?”
Gordon almost sprang from his seat in pleasure.
“It just exactly fits in with my plans, or, rather, my wishes,” he
said, smiling. “There are several matters of my own that I would like
to attend to in New York and for which of course I did not have time.”
He paused and looked at his chief, half hesitating, marvelling that the
way had so miraculously opened for him to keep silence a little longer
on the subject of his marriage. Perhaps the chief need never be told
that the marriage ceremony took place on the day of the Holman dinner.
“That is good,” said the chief, smiling. “You certainly have earned the
right to attend to your own affairs. Then we need not feel so bad at
having to send you back. Can you go on the afternoon train? Good! Then
let us hear your account of your trip briefly, to see if there are any
points we didn’t notice yesterday. But first just step here a moment. I
have something to show you.”
He flung open the door to the next office.
“You knew that Ferry had left the Department on account of his
ill-health? I have taken the liberty of having your things moved in
here. This will hereafter be your headquarters, and you will be next to
me in the Department.”
Gordon turned in amazement and gazed at the kindly old face. Promotion
he had hoped for, but such promotion, right over the heads of his
elders and superiors, he had never dreamed of receiving. He could have
taken the chief in his arms.
“Pooh! Pooh!” said the chief. “You deserve it, you deserve it!” when
Gordon tried to blunder out some words of appreciation. Then, as if to
cap the climax, he added:
“And, by the way, you know some one has got to run across the water to
look after that Stanhope matter. That will fall to you, I’m afraid.
Sorry to keep you trotting around the globe, but perhaps you’ll like
to make a little vacation of it. The Department’ll give you some time
if you want it. Oh, don’t thank me! It’s simply the reward of doing
your duty, to have more duties given you, and higher ones. You have
done well, young man. I have here all the papers in the Stanhope case,
and full directions written out, and then if you can plan for it you
needn’t return, unless it suits your pleasure. You understand the
matter as fully as I do already. And now for business. Let’s hurry
through. There are one or two little matters we must talk over and I
know you will want to hurry back and get ready for your journey.” And
so after all the account of Gordon’s extraordinary escape and eventful
journey home became by reason of its hasty repetition a most prosaic
story composed of the bare facts and not all of those.
At parting the chief pressed Gordon’s hand with heartiness and ushered
him out into the hall, with the same brusque manner he used to close
all business interviews, and Gordon found himself hurrying through the
familiar halls in a daze of happiness, the secret of his unexpected
marriage still his own--and hers.
Celia was watching at the window when his key clicked in the lock and
he let himself into the apartment his face alight with the joy of
meeting her again after the brief absence. She turned in a quiver of
pleasure at his coming.
“Well, get ready,” he said joyfully. “We are ordered off to New York on
the afternoon train, with a wedding trip to Europe into the bargain;
and I’m promoted to the next place to the chief. What do you think of
that for a morning’s surprise?”
He tossed up his hat like a boy, came over to where she stood, and
stooping laid reverent lips upon her brow and eyes.
“Oh, beautiful! lovely!” cried Celia, ecstatically, “come sit down on
the couch and tell me about it. We can work faster afterward if we
get it off our minds. Was your chief very much shocked that you were
married without his permission or knowledge?”
“Why, that was the best of all. I didn’t have to tell him I was
married. And he is not to know until just as I sail. He need never know
how it all happened. It isn’t his business and it would be hard to
explain. No one need ever know except your mother and brother unless
you wish them to, dear.”
“Oh, I am so glad and relieved,” said Celia, delightedly. “I’ve been
worrying about that a little,--what people would think of us,--for of
course we couldn’t possibly explain it all out as it is to us. They
would always be watching us to see if we really cared for each other;
and suspecting that we didn’t, and it would be horrid. I think it is
our own precious secret, and nobody but mamma and Jeff have a right to
know, don’t you?”
“I certainly do, and I was casting about in my mind as I went into the
office how I could manage not to tell the chief, when what did he do
but spring a proposition on me to go at once to New York and identify
those men. He apologized tremendously for having to send me right back
again, but said it was necessary. I told him it just suited me for I
had affairs of my own that I had not had time to attend to when I was
there, and would be glad to go back and see to them. That let me out on
the wedding question for it would be only necessary to tell him I was
married when I got back. He would never ask when.”
“But the announcements,” said Celia catching her breath laughingly,
“I never thought of that. We’ll just have to have some kind of
announcements or my friends will not understand about my new name; and
we’ll have to send him one, won’t we?”
“Why, I don’t know. Couldn’t we get along without announcements?
You can explain to your intimate friends, and the others won’t
ever remember the name after a few months--we’ll not be likely to
meet many of them right away. I’ll write to my chief and tell him
informally leaving out the date entirely. He won’t miss it. If we have
announcements at all we needn’t send him one. He wouldn’t be likely
ever to see one any other way, or to notice the date. I think we can
manage that matter. We’ll talk it over with your--” he hesitated and
then smiling tenderly added, “we’ll talk it over with _mother_. How
good it sounds to say that. I never knew my mother you know.”
Celia nestled her hands in his and murmured, “Oh, I am so happy,--so
happy! But I don’t understand how you got a wedding trip without
telling your chief about our marriage.”
“Easy as anything. He asked me if I would mind running across the
water to attend to a matter for the service and said I might have extra
time while there for a vacation. He never suspects that vacation is to
be used as a wedding trip. I’ll write him, or ’phone him the night we
leave New York. I may have to stay in the city two or three days to get
this Holman matter settled, and then we can be off. In the meantime you
can spend the time reconciling your mother to her new son. Do you think
we’ll have a very hard time explaining matters to her?”
“Not a bit,” said Celia, gaily. “She never did like George. It was the
only thing we ever disagreed about, my marrying him. She suspected
all the time I wasn’t happy and couldn’t understand why I insisted on
marrying him when I hadn’t seen him for ten years. She begged me to
wait until he had been back in the country for a year or two, but he
would not hear to such a thing and threatened to carry out his worst at
once.”
Gordon’s heart suddenly contracted with righteous wrath over the
cowardliness of the man who sought to gain his own ends by intimidating
a woman,--and this woman, so dear, so beautiful, so lovely in her
nature. It seemed the man’s heart must indeed be black to have done
what he did. He mentally resolved to search him out and bring him to
justice as soon as he reached New York. It puzzled him to understand
how easily he seemed to have abandoned his purposes. Perhaps after
all he was more of a coward than they thought, and had not dared to
remain in the country when he found that Celia had braved his wrath and
married another man. He would find out about him and set the girl’s
heart at rest just as soon as possible, that any embarrassment at some
future time might be avoided. Gordon stooped and kissed his wife again,
a caress that seemed to promise all reparation for the past.
But it suddenly occurred to the two that trains did not wait for
lovers’ long loitering, and with one accord they went to work. Celia
of course had very little preparation to make. Her trunk was probably
in Chicago and would need to be wired for. Gordon attended to that the
first thing, looking up the number of the check and ordering it back
to New York by telegraph. Turning from the telephone he rang for the
man and asked Celia to give the order for lunch while he got together
some things that he must take with him. A stay of several weeks would
necessitate a little more baggage than he had taken to New York.
He went into the bedroom and began pulling out things to pack but when
Celia turned from giving her directions she found him standing in the
bedroom doorway with an old-fashioned velvet jewel case in his hand
which he had just taken from the little safe in his room. His face
wore a wonderful tender light as if he had just discovered something
precious.
“Dear,” he said, “I wonder if you will care for these. They were
mother’s. Perhaps this ring will do until I can buy you a new one. See
if it will fit you. It was my mother’s.”
He held out a ring containing a diamond of singular purity and
brilliance in quaint old-fashioned setting.
Celia put out her hand with its wedding ring, the ring that he had put
upon her finger at the altar, and he slipped the other jewelled one
above it. It fitted perfectly.
“It is a beauty,” breathed Celia, holding out her hand to admire it,
“and I would far rather have it than a new one. Your dear little
mother!”
“There’s not much else here but a little string of pearls and a pin or
two. I have always kept them near me. Somehow they seemed like a link
between me and mother. I was keeping them for--” he hesitated and then
giving her a rare smile he finished:
“I was keeping them for you.”
Her answering look was eloquent, and needed no words which was well,
for Henry appeared at that moment to serve luncheon and remind his
master that his train left in a little over two hours. There was no
further time for sentiment.
And yet, these two, it seemed, could not be practical that day. They
idled over their luncheon and dawdled over their packing, stopping to
look at this and that picture or bit of bric-a-brac that Gordon had
picked up in some of his travels; and Henry finally had to take things
in his own hands, pack them off and send their baggage after them.
Henry was a capable man and rejoiced to see the devotion of his master
and his new mistress, but he had a practical head and knew where his
part came in.