The news of Mariana's engagement was received without enthusiasm in The
Gotham. A resentment against innovations of so sweeping an order was
visible in the bearing of a number of the lodgers, and Mr. Nevins was
heard publicly expressing his disapproval. "I never got comfortably
settled anywhere in my life," he announced, "that somebody didn't step
in and disarrange matters. At the last place the head waiter married the
cook, and now Algarcife is marrying Mariana. After our discovering her,
too. I say, it's a beastly shame!"
Mr. Ardly was of one mind with him; so was Mr. Morris. Alone, of all the
table, Mr. Paul stood firm upon the opposite side. An hour after the
news was out he encountered Algarcife upon the stairs and smiled
compassionately.
"I have heard with concern," he began, stiffly, "that you contemplate
taking a serious step."
"Indeed?" returned Anthony, with embarrassment. "I believe I do
contemplate something of the kind, but I had hoped to get it over before
anybody heard of it."
"Such things travel fast," commented Mr. Paul, cheerfully. "I think I
may say that I was in possession of the fact five minutes after your
ultimate decision was reached. It is a serious step, as I have said. As
for the young woman, I have no doubt of her worthiness, though I have
heard contrary opinions--"
"Who has dared?" demanded Anthony.
"Merely opinions, my dear sir, and the right of private judgment is what
we stand on. But, I repeat, I have no doubt of her uprightness. It is
not the individual, sir, but the office. It is the office that is at
fault."
Mr. Paul passed on, and upon the next landing Algarcife found Mr. Nevins
in wait.
"Look here, Algarcife," he remonstrated, "I don't call this fair play,
you know! I've had my eye on Mariana for the last twelve months!"
A thunder-cloud broke upon Anthony's brow. "Then you will be kind enough
to remove it!" he retorted, angrily.
"Oh, come off!" protested Mr. Nevins. "Why, Mariana and I were chums
before you darkened this blessed Gotham! She'd have married me long ago
if I'd had the funds."
"Confound you!" exclaimed Anthony. "Can't you hold your tongue?"
Mr. Nevins smiled amiably and spread out his hands.
"No, I cannot," he answered, imperturbably. "Say, old man, don't get
riled! You'll let me appear at the wedding, won't you?"
Algarcife strode on in a rage, which was not appeased by Ardly's voice
singing out from his open door.
"Congratulations, Algarcife! You are a lucky dog! Like to change shoes."
Upon the balcony he found Mariana, with a blossom of scarlet geranium in
her hair. She stretched out both hands and flashed him a smile like a
caress. "You look positively furious," she observed.
Algarcife's sensitiveness had caused him to treat Mariana much as he
would have treated a Galatea in Dresden, had one been in his possession.
But Claude Nevins had annoyed him, and he spoke irritably.
"I wish you would have nothing to do with that fellow Nevins," he said.
"Why, what has he done?"
"Done? Why, he's an ass--a consummate ass! He told me he had his eye on
you!"
Mariana's laugh pealed out. She raised her hand and brushed the heavy
hair from his forehead. Then she tried to brush the lines from his brow,
but they would not go.
"Why, he's going to give me a supper the night before our marriage," she
said; "that is, they all are--Mr. Ardly, Mr. Sellars, and the rest. They
made a pot of money for it, and each one of them contributed a share,
and it is quite a large pot. We are to have champagne, and I am to sing,
and so will Mr. Nevins. I wanted them to ask you, but Mr. Nevins said
you'd be a damper, and Mr. Ardly said you would be bored."
"Probably," interpolated Anthony.
"But I insisted I wanted you, so Mr. Ardly said they would have to have
you, and Mr. Nevins said they'd have Mr. Paul, if I made a point of it;
but they thought I might give them one jolly evening before settling
down, so I said I would."
"You will do nothing of the kind," retorted Algarcife.
"But they are so anxious. It will be such a dreadful disappointment to
them."
"I will not have it."
"But I've done it before."
"Don't tell me of it. You want to go, and without me?"
"Of course I'd rather you should be there, but it is cruel to disappoint
them," Mariana objected, "when they have made such a nice pot of money."
"But I do not like it," said Anthony.
Mariana laughed into his eyes. "Then you sha'n't have it," she said, and
leaned against the railing and touched his arm with her fingers. "Say
you love me, and I will not go," she added.
Anthony did not touch the hand that lay upon his arm. His mood was too
deep for caresses.
"If you knew how I love you," he said, slowly--"if you only knew! There
is no happiness in it; it is agony. I am afraid--afraid for the first
time in my life--afraid of losing you."
"You shall never lose me."
"It is a horrible thing, this fear--this fear for something outside of
yourself!" He spoke with a sudden, half-fierce possession. "You are
mine," he said, "and you love me!"
Mariana pressed closer to his side. "If I had not come," she began,
softly, "you would have read and worked and fed the sparrows, and you
would never have known it."
"But you came." The hand upon the railing relaxed. "My mother was a
Creole," he continued. "She came from New Orleans to marry my father,
and died because the North was cold and her heart was in the South. You
are my South, and the world is cold, for my heart is in you."
"I have wanted love all my life," said Mariana, "and now I have found
it. I have thought before that I had it, but it was only a shadow. This
is real. As real as myself--as real as this railing. I feel glad--oh, so
glad!--and I feel tender. I should like to pray and go softly. I should
like to make that old woman at the flower-stall happy and to freshen the
withered flowers. I should like to kiss the children playing on the
sidewalk. See how merry they look," and she leaned far over. "I should
like to pat the head of that yellow dog in the gutter. I should like to
make the whole world glad--because of you."
"Mariana!"
"The world is beautiful, and I love you; but I am sorry--oh, so
sorry!--for the people in the street."
"Forget them, beloved, and think of me."
"But you taught me to think of them."
"I will teach you to think of me."
"That I have learned by heart."
"Mariana!"
They stood with locked hands upon the balcony, and the roar of the
elevated road came up to them, and the old flower-woman put up her
withered flowers and went her way, and the children's laughter grew
fainter upon the air, and the yellow dog gnawed at a rock that it took
for a bone; and the great, great wheel ground on, grinding to each man
and to each dog according to his kind his share of the things written
and unwritten in the book of life.
* * * * *
A week later they were married. Mariana had coveted a church ceremony,
and Anthony had desired a registrar's office, so they compromised, and
the service was read in Mr. Speares's study.
"I should have dearly liked the 'Lohengrin March' and stained-glass
windows," remarked Mariana, a little regretfully, as they walked
homeward. "It seems as if something were missing. I can't tell just
what."
"What does it matter?" asked Algarcife, cheerfully. "A street corner and
an organ-grinder would have answered my purpose, had he been legally
empowered to pronounce the blessing. It is all rot, I suppose, but I'd
face every priest and rabbi in New York if they could bind us closer."
He smiled at Mariana. His eager face looked almost boyish, and he walked
with the confident air of one who is sure of his pathway.
"But they could not," added Mariana, and they both laughed, because they
were young and life was before them.
They retained the rooms in The Gotham with the fire-escape outside the
windows, though Anthony found that his income, after deducting a portion
for Mariana's expenses, was barely sufficient. He had not realized
before how complete was his reliance for existence upon the Bodley
College. Even in the thrill of his first happiness there was a haunting
vision of Mariana reduced to poverty and himself powerless. He
endeavored to insure an independent livelihood by contributing
semi-scientific articles to various reviews, but the work was
uncongenial, and he felt it to be a failure. The basis of his mental
attitude was too firmly embedded to yield superficial product, and he
tasted the knowledge that, had he known less, he might have lived
easier.
At this time his great work was laid aside, a sacrifice to necessity,
and he spent his days and nights in unmurmuring toil for the sake of
Mariana. He was willing to labor, so long as he might love in the
intervals of rest.
As for Mariana, she was vividly alive. Beneath the warmth of emotion her
nature expanded into fulfilment, and with fulfilment awoke the subtle
charm of her personality.
"Have you seen Mariana?" inquired Nevins of Ardly one day. "If so, you
have seen a woman in love."
Ardly smiled and flicked the ashes from his cigar.
"Is she?" he asked, cynically; "or is it that the froth of sentiment
above her heart is troubled and she believes the depth of passion is
stirred? I have lived, my dear fellow, as you probably know, and I have
seen strange things, but the strangest of these is the way of a maid
with a man."
"Be that as it may, she is charming," returned Nevins. "And Algarcife
ought to thank his stars, though why she married him is a mystery I
relegate to the general unravelling of judgment-day."
"She probably had sense enough to appreciate the most brilliant man in
New York," concluded Ardly, loyally, as he took up a volume of
Maupassant and departed.
And that Mariana did appreciate Algarcife was not to be questioned. She
threw herself into the worship of him with absolute disregard of all
retarding interests. When he was near, she lavished demonstrations upon
him; when he was away, she sat with folded hands and dreamed day-dreams.
She had given up her music, and she even went so far as to declare that
she would give up her acquaintances, that they might be sufficient unto
each other. For his sake she discussed theories which she did not
understand, and accepted doctrines of which she had once been
intolerant. That emotional energy which had led her imagination into
devious ways had at last, she told herself, found its appropriate
channel. Even the stringent economy which was forced upon them was
turned into merriment by the play of Mariana's humor.
"Life must only be taken seriously," she said, "when it has ceased to be
a jest, and that will be when one has grown too dull to see the
point--for the point is always there."
"And sometimes it pricks," laughed Anthony.