It is probable that he got the truth out of her, perhaps all of
it. That will remain a matter of doubt; Cora's evidence, if she
gave it, not being wholly trustworthy in cases touching herself.
But she felt no need of mentioning to any one that she had seen
her former lover that day. He had gone before the return of
Enfield, Mr. Trumble's assistant, who was a little later than
usual, it happened; and the extreme nervousness and preoccupation
exhibited by Cora in telling Enfield of his employer's new plans
were attributed by the cashier to the natural agitation of a lady
about to wed in a somewhat unusual (though sensible) manner.
It is the more probable that she told Ray the whole truth, because
he already knew something of Corliss's record abroad. On the dusty
desk in Ray's own office lay a letter, received that morning from
the American Consul at Naples, which was luminous upon that
subject, and upon the probabilities of financial returns for the
investment of a thousand dollars in the alleged oil-fields of
Basilicata.
In addition, Cora had always found it very difficult to deceive
Vilas: he had an almost perfect understanding of a part of her
nature; she could never far mislead him about herself. With her,
he was intuitive and jumped to strange, inconsistent, true
conclusions, as women do. He had the art of reading her face, her
gestures; he had learned to listen to the tone of her voice more
than to what she said. In his cups, too, he had fitful but almost
demoniac inspirations for hidden truth.
And, remembering that Cora always "got even," it remains finally
to wonder if she might not have told him everything at the
instance of some shadowy impulse in that direction. There may have
been a luxury in whatever confession she made; perhaps it was not
entirely forced from her, and heaven knows how she may have
coloured it. There was an elusive, quiet satisfaction somewhere in
her subsequent expression; it lurked deep under the surface of the
excitement with which she talked to Enfield of her imminent
marital abduction of his small boss.
Her agitation, a relic of the unknown interview just past,
simmered down soon, leaving her in a becoming glow of colour, with
slender threads of moisture brilliantly outlining her eyelids. Mr.
Enfield, a young, well-favoured and recent importation from
another town, was deliciously impressed by the charm of the
waiting lady. They had not met; and Enfield wondered how Trumble
had compassed such an enormous success as this; and he wished that
he had seen her before matters had gone so far. He thought he
might have had a chance. She seemed pleasantly interested in him,
even as it was--and her eyes were wonderful, with their swift,
warm, direct little plunges into those of a chance comrade of the
moment. She went to the window, in her restlessness, looking down
upon the swarming street below, and the young man, standing beside
her, felt her shoulder most pleasantly though very lightly--in
contact with his own, as they leaned forward, the better to see
some curiosity of advertising that passed. She turned her face to
his just then, and told him that he must come to see her: the
wedding journey would be long, she said, but it would not be
forever.
Trumble bounded in, shouting that everything was attended to,
except instructions to Enfield, whom he pounded wildly upon the
back. He began signing papers; a stenographer was called from
another room of his offices; and there was half an hour of
rapid-fire. Cora's bag came, and she gave the bearer the note for
Laura; another bag was brought for Wade; and both bags were
carried down to the automobile the bridegroom had left waiting in
the street. Last, came a splendid cluster of orchids for the bride
to wear, and then Wade, with his arm about her, swept her into the
corridor, and the stirred Enfield was left to his own beating
heart, and the fresh, radiant vision of this startling new
acquaintance: the sweet mystery of the look she had thrown back at
him over his employer's shoulder at the very last. "Do not forget
_me_!" it had seemed to say. "We shall come back--some day."
The closed car bore the pair to the little grim marriage-shop
quickly enough, though they were nearly run down by a furious
police patrol automobile, at a corner near the Richfield Hotel.
Their escape was by a very narrow margin of safety, and Cora
closed her eyes. Then she was cross, because she had been
frightened, and commanded Wade cavalierly to bid the driver be
more careful.
Wade obeyed sympathetically. "Of course, though, it wasn't
altogether his fault," he said, settling back, his arm round his
lady's waist. "It's an outrage for the police to break their own
rules that way. I guess they don't need to be in a hurry any more
than _we_ do!"
The Justice made short work of it.
As they stood so briefly before him, there swept across her vision
the memory of what she had always prophesied as her wedding:--a
crowded church, "The Light That Breathed O'er Eden" from an unseen
singer; then the warm air trembling to the Lohengrin march; all
heads turning; the procession down the aisle; herself
appearing--climax of everything--a delicious and brilliant figure:
graceful, rosy, shy, an imperial prize for the groom, who in these
foreshadowings had always been very indistinct. The picture had
always failed in outline there: the bridegroom's nearest approach
to definition had never been clearer than a composite photograph.
The truth is, Cora never in her life wished to be married.
But she was.