For the next two weeks Eleanor made a heroic effort to follow Quin's
advice and be nice to Madam. She wanted, with all her heart, to gain her
point peacefully, and she also wanted Quin's approval of what she was
doing. In spite of his obvious adoration, she frequently detected a note
of criticism in his voice, that, while it piqued her, also stirred her
conscience and made her see things in a new and disturbing light. For the
first time, she began to wonder if she could be partly to blame for the
friction that always existed between herself and her grandmother. She
certainly had taken an unholy joy in flaunting her Martel characteristics
in the old lady's face. It was not that she preferred to identify herself
with her mother's family rather than with her father's. The Martel
shiftlessness and visionary improvidence were quite as intolerable to her
as the iron-clad conventions of the Bartletts. She could take correction
from Aunt Isobel and Aunt Enid, but there was something in her
grandmother's caustic comments that made her tingle with instant
opposition, as a delicate vase will shiver at the sound of its own
vibration.
During the days before the wedding she surprised herself by her docility
and acquiescence in all that was proposed for her. She even accepted
without demur the white swiss and blue ribbons that a week before she had
considered entirely too infantile for an adult maid of honor. This
particular exhibition of virtue was due to the exemplary behavior of the
bride herself. Miss Enid had longed for the regulation white satin, tulle
veil, and orange blossoms; but Madam had promptly cited the case of the
old maid who waited so long to marry that her orange blossoms turned to
oranges.
Miss Enid was married in a sober traveling dress, and carried a
prayer-book. She and Mr. Chester stood in front of the drawing-room
mantel, where twenty years before Madam had expressed her opinion
concerning sentimental young fools who thought they could live on fifteen
dollars a week.
The budding romance, snatched ruthlessly up and flung into the dust-heap
of common sense, had lain dormant all these years, until Quinby Graham
had stumbled upon its dried old roots, and planted them once again in the
garden of dreams.
Why is it that we will breathlessly follow the callowest youth and the
silliest maiden through the most intricate labyrinth of love, never
losing interest until they drop safely into one another's arms, and yet
when two seasoned, mellowed human beings tried by life and found worthy
of the prize of love, dare lift a sentimental lid or sigh a word of
romance, we straightway howl with derision?
It was not until Eleanor stood beside the elderly bride that the affair
ceased to be funny to her. For the first time, she saw something pathetic
and beautiful in the permanence of a love that, starved and thwarted and
blasted by ridicule, could survive the years and make two faded,
middle-aged people like Aunt Enid and Mr. Chester eager to drain the
dregs of life together, when they had been denied the good red wine.
Her eyes wandered from their worn, elated faces to the rows of solemn
figures behind them. Madam, as usual, dominated the scene. Her portrait
gazed in portentously from the hall; her marble bust gleamed from a
distant corner; and she herself, the most resplendent person present, sat
in a chair of state placed like a proscenium-box, and critically observed
the performance.
"If she only _wouldn't_ curl her lip like that!" thought Eleanor
shudderingly; then she remembered her resolution and looked at Quin.
He too was looking preternaturally solemn, and his lips were moving
softly in unison with Mr. Chester's. If Eleanor could have heard those
inaudible responses she would have been startled by the words: "I,
Quinby, take thee, Eleanor." But she only observed that he was lost in a
day-dream, and that she had never seen him look so nice.
Indeed, he was a very different-looking person from the boy that six
months ago had mortified her by his appearance at her Easter party in
"the classiest coat in the market." The propriety of his garments made
her suspect that Uncle Ranny had had a hand in their selection.
"And I like the way he's got his hair slicked back," she thought. "I
wonder how he ever managed it?"
After the wedding breakfast, which was a lavish one, and the departure of
the bride and groom, for California, where they were to make their future
home, Madam summoned Eleanor.
"There's no use in you and Quin Graham staying here with all these
fossils," she said, lowering her voice. "People hate to go home from a
wedding almost as much as they do from a funeral! You two take this and
go to a matinée."
This unexpected concession to Eleanor's weakness touched her deeply. She
flew into the hall to tell Quin, and then rushed upstairs to change her
dress.
"I believe the scheme is working!" she said joyously, as she and Quin sat
in the theater waiting for the curtain to rise. "Grandmother has been
peaches and cream to me all week. This morning she capped the climax by
giving me a check for a hundred dollars to buy a gold mesh bag."
"A _what!_" cried Quin, aghast.
"A mesh bag. But I am not going to get it. I sent the check to Rose. It
has nearly killed me not to have a penny to send them all summer, and
this came just in time. Have you heard about Myrna?"
"Being asked to spend the winter at Mrs. Ranny's? I should say I have!
She's the happiest kid alive."
"And grandmother has even stood for that! It's a perfect scream to hear
her bragging about 'my son's farm.' She will be talking about 'my
daughter's husband' next."
"Queen Vic's all right," Quin declared stoutly. "Her only trouble is that
she's been trying to play baseball by herself; she's got to learn
team-work."
The play happened to be "The Better 'Ole"; and from the moment the
curtain rose Eleanor was oblivious to everything but the humor and pathos
and glory of the story. She followed with ready tears and smiles the
adventures of the three Tommies; she thrilled to the sentimental songs
beside the stage camp fire; she laughed at the antics of the incomparable
Corporal Bill. It was not until the second act that she became conscious
of the queer behavior of her companion.
Quin sat hunched up in his wedding suit, his jaw set like a vise, staring
solemnly into space with an expression she had never seen in his face
before. He seemed to have forgotten where he was and whom he was with.
His hand had crushed the program into a ball, and his breath came short,
as it always did when he was excited or over-exerted.
Eleanor, whose emotions up to now had been pleasantly and superficially
stirred, suddenly saw the play from a new angle. With quick imagination
she visualized the great reality of which all this was but a clever sham.
She saw Quin passing through it all, not to the thunder of stage shrapnel
and the glare of a red spot-light, but in the life-and-death struggle of
those eighteen months in the trenches. Before she knew it, she too was
gazing absently into space, shaken with the profound realization that
here beside her, his shoulder touching hers, was one who had lived more
in a day than she had ever lived in a life-time.
They said little during the last intermission, and the silence brought
them closer together than any words could have done.
"It takes a fellow back--all this," Quin roused himself to say in
half-apology.
"I know," said Eleanor.
They walked home in the autumn twilight in that exalted, romantic mood in
which a good play leaves one. Now that the tension was over, it was quite
possible to prolong the enjoyment by discussing the strong and weak
points of the performance. Eleanor was surprised to find that Quin, while
ignorant of the meaning of the word technic nevertheless had decided and
worth-while opinions about every detail, and that his comments were often
startlingly pertinent.
They reached the Bartletts' before they knew it, and Quin sighed
ruefully:
"I wish Miss Enid and Mr. Chester could get married every Wednesday! When
can I see you again?"
"Some time soon."
"To-morrow night?"
"I am afraid that's too soon."
"Friday?"
"No; I am going to a dance at the Country Club Friday night."
Still he lingered disconsolately on the lower step, unable to tear
himself away.
"Do you know," he said, gaining time by presenting a grievance, "you
never have danced with me but twice in your life?"
She looked at him dreamily.
"The funny thing is that I remember those two dances better than any I've
ever had with anybody else."
He came up the steps two at a time.
"What do you mean by that?" he demanded. "Are you joshing me?"
"No, honest. That New Year's eve with the blizzard raging outside, and
that bright crowded hall, and all you boys just home from France. Do you
remember the big blue parrots that swung in hoops from the chandeliers?
And that wonderful saxophone and the big bass drum!"
"Then it isn't _me_ that you remember? Just a darned old parrot hanging
on a hoop, and a saxophone and a drum!"
"You silly! Of course it's you too! I remember every single thing you
told me, and how terribly thrilled I was. This afternoon brought it all
back. I shall never forget this, either. Not as long as I live!"
She started to put out her hand; but, seeing the look in Quin's eyes, she
reconsidered and opened the door instead.
"So long," she said casually. "I'll probably see you sometime next week.
In the meanwhile I'll be good to granny!"