AFTER the morning on which Martha had been by accident a witness of the
princess’s self-betrayal, there seemed nothing lacking to the complete
understanding of the two friends, and their intimacy was now stronger
and closer than ever. It was not practicable for Martha to visit the
princess very often, as she was compelled to take the time for these
visits out of her atelier hours, and both women were too earnest in
their work not to begrudge this. Lately they had fallen into the custom
of the generality of the students, and went for their midday meal to the
_crèmerie_ in the neighborhood, after they had visited first the
butcher’s shop, and selected their own mutton-chop or bit of beefsteak;
then they had it cooked according to their directions. This, with fresh
rolls and baked apples and milk, made an excellent meal, sometimes
augmented by potato salad. Martha had been initiated into these
mysteries by an American girl whose acquaintance she had made through
the latter’s having once offered to help her on with her “josie,” a word
which had established an easy footing between them at once.
Martha never exchanged more than a passing remark with the other
students, partly because she had, in the beginning, built a sort of
barrier around her by her shyness, and, recently, because she felt that
her intimacy with the princess, who knew none of the others, set her
more than ever apart.
One morning Martha came to the atelier rather late, and showed,
moreover, a certain excitement in her movements and expression which she
accounted for at lunch-time by telling the princess that her sister’s
wedding had been hurried up, and was to take place almost immediately.
There were several good reasons for this; one being that it suited much
better the plans of the bridegroom elect, and another that Mrs. Keene,
being in rather delicate health, had been urged by her physicians to
leave Paris. So, as soon as the wedding was over, she was to go south
with the younger girls and their governess; and Martha, who rebelled
against being taken from her beloved painting, had a beautiful plan of
getting her brother to stay awhile in Paris with her in their mother’s
apartment. This she confided to the princess with breathless delight,
saying that she had written to Harold about it, and told him to cable
her if he were willing. Her friend could see that, with her usual
license of imagination, Martha had been making all sorts of plans in
connection with this scheme, and she more than suspected that some of
these concerned herself.
“My dear Martha,” she said, with a penetrating look into her friend’s
eager eyes, “give it up at once, on the spot, if you have been making
any plans to introduce your brother to me!”
“Oh, _why_?” said Martha, in tones of the keenest regret.
“Because, my dear, it is out of the question. If you knew how sick to
death I am of men, you would not ask it. Please, if you love me, don’t
speak of it again.”
This, of course, was final, and Martha was compelled to bear her
disappointment with what patience she could summon. She got a promise
from the princess, however, that she would come to the wedding, which
was to take place in the American church. At least this would give her
the satisfaction of feeling in the future that her friend had seen her
brother, and she hoped she might contrive in some way that the latter
should see the princess, since it was now decreed that the intercourse
could go no further.
Great as Martha’s disappointment was, she forced herself to recognize
the fact that, as things were, it might be all for the best that these
two should not meet. She could imagine but one result of that meeting,
and that, under existing circumstances, might be disastrous to both.
Neither of them had fully confided in her, but both of them had told her
plainly that a second love was the thing which they most strongly
repudiated. In Harold’s case, she knew that this feeling was one that
his conscience, no less than his heart, ordained; and in the case of the
princess, she somehow felt that it was the same.
The princess, for some reason, did not tell Martha what a notable
exception to her rule she made in going to this wedding. The fact was,
she had never been to any wedding since her own; and it may have been
that fact which accounted for the state of intense excitement which she
was in as she drove alone in her carriage through the streets of Paris
to the church in the Avenue de l’Alma.
As she got out, and instructed her coachman where to wait, this inward
excitement showed in every rapid movement and word. Afterward, when she
entered the church, and walked, with a definiteness of manner which
would seem to have indicated a prearranged plan, straight down the
left-hand aisle to the choir-stalls, her face was flushed and her eyes
were brilliant. It was early, and few people had come as yet.
The princess wore a long, dark cloak, which concealed her figure, and on
her large hat, which hid the outline of her head, a rather thick Russian
veil was fastened, so that her features were scarcely distinguishable.
There was a shaded corner near the organ, behind the chorister-stalls,
that was quite screened from the congregation, and so situated as to be
almost out of view from the chancel also, if one chose to protect one’s
self behind the great pillar that stood there. The day was dark and
cloudy, but the chancel was brilliant with lighted candles. The
princess with firm confidence walked to this place, and took her seat.
She did not seem to care whether the church was filling up or not. She
scarcely noticed when some people came and took the seats near her. In
these moments she was so lost in thoughts and reminiscences that the
furious beating of her heart almost suffocated her.
When, from just behind her, a great organ-note swelled forth, and filled
the church with tremulous vibrations, the princess gave a little
fluttered start. No one was near enough to observe this, however, or to
see the crouching back into her seat which followed it. The music seemed
to heighten her emotion, and she trembled visibly. She quite lost count
of time, and did not know how long it was before she saw a clergyman
enter the chancel and stand there, waiting. Then, as two officers in
rich uniforms came and took their places in front of him, the sonorous
chords of the old familiar Mendelssohn march swelled from the organ, and
the heart within her seemed to stop and sink. It was the sound and
influence to which, in perfect joy, she had walked to her own wedding.
She knew that the bridal procession was coming up the aisle, but she did
not turn her head to get a view into the church. She felt the people
about her rise to their feet, but she sat still. Her trembling limbs
would not have held her up; but she did not even know that she was
trembling. She knew only that she was waiting--that all her heart and
all her soul were wrapped in a bewildering suspense until the coming of
what was very near her now. They passed close to her, the girls in their
white dresses, and the officers in their glittering uniforms, and stood
in divided ranks, leaving the space between them clear.
Into this space, directly in front of the clergyman, there now advanced
a woman covered with a cloud of gauzy tulle. She leaned upon the arm of
the only man in the party who was not in uniform.
It was on this figure that the princess fastened her eyes, never once
removing them until the short ceremony had come to an end. The bride was
a shapeless blur. The bridesmaids were a billowy cloud. The officers
were mere dazzles of color and gold lace. One object there was that cut
its way into her consciousness with acute distinctness--the dark-clad,
[Illustration: “THE MAN WHO STOOD WAITING TO GIVE THE BRIDE.”]
clearly outlined figure and pale profile of the man who stood waiting to
give the bride.
When the music ceased, and the minister told the congregation that they
were assembled to join together this man and this woman in holy
matrimony, it was another man and woman that she thought of; and so
through all the solemn charge and searching questioning that followed.
When the minister asked, “Who giveth this woman to be married?” and the
man that she had been watching gave up his companion with a slight
inclination of the head, and moved aside, the gaze of the princess still
followed and rested on him. When, a moment later, a strange foreign
voice said painstakingly, “I, Victor, take thee, Alice, to my wedded
wife,” what she heard, in natural and familiar English utterance was
this: “I, Harold, take thee, Sophia, to 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.” And it was her own voice which made answer: “I, Sophia, take
thee, Harold.”
A hard clutch was on her heart. He was there--the Harold who had made
that vow to her; and she, Sophia, was here, in life, not death! “Till
death us do part,” they had both of them sworn, and they had let life
part them! The terrible wrong of it all rushed over her. The reasons
which had made that parting seem to her right before now vanished into
air. She felt that crime alone could ever link one of them to another.
She felt that this separation between them was in itself a crime, and
she who had done it the chief of criminals.
All this she felt with terrifying force, but a feeling stronger than
even any of these had taken possession of her--a want and longing had
awakened in her heart which strained it almost intolerably. She looked
at the bride’s brother, standing there intensely still, in an attitude
of complete repose, and a feeling that he was hers, and hers alone took
possession of her. She grew reckless of appearances, and stood up in her
place, with her face turned full toward him. She heard the clergyman’s
stern behest that man put not asunder those whom God hath joined, and
she heard him pronounce that they were man and wife, in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Her heart said a solemn
amen.
Imagination lingered on these thrilling thoughts while the blessing was
pronounced and the service ended; and then the little procession, the
bride and bridegroom at its head, and the figure that she watched at his
mother’s side behind them, passed her and went down the aisle, while the
familiar music was playing, to which she had walked from the altar a
blissfully happy wife--and she was left alone!
The organist quickly closed the organ, and hurried away. The people near
her moved off too; and still she sat there motionless, feeling herself
deserted and most miserable. A boy, putting out the candles, roused her
to consciousness, and somehow she got out of the place.