Mr. Kenmore, having vainly protested at first against making a show of
himself, has now resigned himself to his fate, and stands awaiting his
martyrdom with a rather bored look on his handsome face. Irene, on the
point of a vehement refusal to enact the bride's part, suddenly catches
a glimpse of Bertha's face glowering on her from the door, and on the
instant her mood changes.
Never so willing a bride as she.
After that one glance she does not seem to see Bertha. She stands with
lowered eyelids waiting while the gay young girls fasten a square of
tulle on her hair with a spray of real orange blossoms from the pet
orange tree that is the pride of the hostess. No one sees the mischief
dancing under the demurely drooping lashes.
"Poor old Bert--how mad she is," the girl is saying to herself. "I think
I've almost paid her out now for her meanness. As soon as the wedding is
over she shall have her fine beau back. I believe I have almost teased
her enough."
"Who will be the preacher?" she inquires, glancing around at the lads.
"Mr. Clavering, Mr. Clavering!" cried half a dozen voices. "He looks the
parson to the life, with his black coat and little white tie. There he
is on the balcony. Go and ask him, Mr. Kenmore."
Guy Kenmore steps lazily through the low window and addresses the
little, clerical-looking figure standing meditatively in the moonlight.
"Excuse me," he says, in his bored tone. "We are going to have a
marriage, by way of a diversion for the young people. Will you come in
and perform the ceremony for us?"
Mr. Clavering turns a pale, dreamy, rather delicate face, toward the
speaker.
"Isn't it rather sudden?" he inquires.
"Rather," Mr. Kenmore asserts, with a careless laugh, and without more
words they step through the window into the parlor, where the babel of
shrill young voices goes on without cessation.
The bride, and a giggling string of attendants, are already on the floor
awaiting them. Guy Kenmore laughingly steps to his place. Somebody puts
a prayer-book into Mr. Clavering's hand and merrily introduces him to
the bride and groom. He bows, and, with quite an assumption of gravity,
opens the book and begins to read the beautiful marriage service.
To Bertha Brooke, glaring with scarce repressed rage at the mock
marriage, it all seems horribly real. Irene has put on a shy, frightened
look, supposed to be natural to brides, and no one takes note of the
suppressed merriment dancing in her blue eyes, as she pictures to
herself Bertha's silent rage. Mr. Kenmore, impressed beyond his will by
the solemn marriage words, looks a little graver than his wont. The
babel of voices is momentarily still, while bright eyes gaze entranced
on the beautiful scene. It seems to Bertha as if she can no longer bear
it; as if she must scream out aloud as she hears Guy Kenmore's deep,
full voice repeating after Mr. Clavering:
"I, Guy, take thee, Irene, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold
from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in
sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part,
according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth."
"Mamma, for God's sake, stop it," Bertha utters, in a fierce whisper,
clutching her mother's arm.
"Don't be a fool, Bertha! It is nothing but child's play," Mrs. Brooke
replies, impatiently, and, in a minute more the ring is slipped over
Irene's finger, and the minister utters, in tones that sound too solemn
for this pretty mockery:
"Whom God had joined together, let no man put asunder."
Gay congratulations followed, and Irene, a little paler than her wont,
slipped over to Elaine, who was white as death, with the dew of unshed
tears glittering on her long, thick lashes.
"You dear old owl, how solemn you look," she said. "But I didn't like it
myself. It sounded too horribly real. Once I had half a mind to break
loose, and run away!"
Mrs. Brooke glared at her youngest pride in silent rage. The vials of
her wrath were reserved till to-morrow.
Irene darted to Mr. Kenmore's side and looked at him with laughing eyes:
"You may go and stay with Bert now," she said, carelessly, "I believe I
have teased her quite enough, and I mean to be good the remainder of the
night."
He looked at the bright, arch face curiously a minute, then moved away
to join Bertha.
She received him with a curling lip, and an irrepressible flash of her
proud, dark eyes.
"I did not know you were so fond of juvenile society, Mr. Kenmore," she
said, in a tone of pique.
"I am not; I was rather forced into this affair, Miss Bertha," he
replied, languidly, and with a rather bored expression. "But come, let
us promenade the balcony in the moonlight. Or would you prefer to
dance?"
"The balcony by all means," answered Bertha, remembering what an
opportunity it would afford for a sentimental _tete-a-tete_, and also
that a pretty woman never looks more lovely than by moonlight.
"When did you leave Baltimore?" she inquired, as they stepped through
the low French window, and walked arm-in-arm along the moonlighted
balcony.
"Only to-day," he answered. "I remembered my promise to visit you at Bay
View, and thought it a good time to keep my word, not dreaming that you
would be absent. I half-feared you would have forgotten me, it has been
so long since your visit to the city," he added, half-quizzically, for
Irene's innocent prattle that evening had let in some light upon his
mind. He understood that Bertha claimed him openly as her lover, and
fully calculated on marrying him, while the truth was that though he had
a lazy admiration for the beautiful brunette, he had never dreamed of
aspiring for her hand. His intimate friends did not consider him "a
marrying man."
"As if I could ever forget my visit to Baltimore," said Bertha,
sentimentally, with an effective upward glance into his face from her
dark, long-lashed eyes.
Mr. Kenmore returned the coquettish glance with interest. He was an
adept at flirting himself when he could conquer his natural indolence
enough to exercise the art.
"I hope it will not be long before you visit the city again," he said.
"Your friend, Miss Leigh, sent you as much love as I could conveniently
transport, and an urgent message to come again."
"I shall be delighted," exclaimed Bertha, who was fast forgetting
Irene's naughtiness, and recovering her spirits in the charm of her
admirer's presence. Now that she had him all to herself, her horrible
fears of her younger sister's rivalry grew less, and she resolved to
make the very most of this glorious _tete-a-tete_ under the beautiful
moonlight with the soft notes of the entrancing dance-music blending
with the murmuring of the melancholy sea.
She was succeeding almost beyond her expectations. Mr. Kenmore was
lending himself to her efforts to charm with unqualified approval.
He had dropped his indolent air of being bored by everything, and his
dark eyes sparkled with interest, when suddenly the scene was changed,
and Bertha's sentimentalisms interrupted by a little flying white figure
that came through the window with a rush, and clutched Mr. Kenmore's arm
frantically, with two desperate young hands, and looked up at him with
eyes that were wide and dark with horror.
"Mr. Kenmore, oh, Mr. Kenmore," panted the sharp, shrill, frightened
young voice, "do you know what they are saying in yonder?--what Mr.
Clavering is saying? That--that--he is a _real minister_, and that it
was a _real marriage_! It isn't true! Oh, my God, it can't be! Go, and
make them say it is all a wretched joke to frighten me!"
There was a moment's stunned silence broken only by a scream of dismay
from Bertha. Irene was gazing with a blanched face, and wild, beseeching
eyes, up into the handsome, startled face of the man. Suddenly he pushed
the white hands from his arm, broke loose from Bertha's clasp, and
strode hastily through the window.
Irene fell upon the floor, all her childishness stricken from her by
this terrible blow, and grovelled in abject terror.
Haughty Bertha spurned the little white figure with her dainty slippered
foot.
"Get up," she said, harshly. "Get up, Irene, and tell me the truth! Is
it true what you were saying, or only one of your miserable jokes?"
Irene dragged herself up miserably from the floor, and clung to the
balcony rail around which clambered a white rose vine. The snowy,
scented roses were not whiter than her haggard young face.
"Oh, Bertha--Bertha, it is true," she said, despairingly. "That stupid
Clavering didn't know we were joking. He is a minister--really a
minister--but no one in the room knew it, because he is a stranger about
here, you know, and staying at the hotel for his health. Oh,
Bertha--Bertha, what shall I do? I don't like Mr. Kenmore! I don't want
to be his wife!"
Bertha shook from head to foot with jealous rage.
"Listen to me, Irene Brooke," she said, in a hoarse, low voice of
concentrated fury. "If this is true, if you really are Guy Kenmore's
wife, I am your bitterest foe as long as you live! I'll make you repent
this night's work in dust and ashes to your dying day!"
As the cruel words left her writhing lips, Mr. Kenmore came out,
followed by Mrs. Brooke and her eldest daughter.
Irene's wild eyes searched the man's face imploringly,
"Yes, it is true," he said to her abruptly, almost harshly. "The man is
an ordained minister, licensed to marry. You are really my wife!"
A piercing shriek, full of the sharpest anguish, followed on the last
cold word. Irene threw up her white arms wildly in the air and fell like
one dead at the bridegroom's feet.