第40章 A BRIDEGROOM SPURNED(1)

After Aggie's vigorous comment there followed a long silence.

That volatile young person, little troubled as she was by sensitiveness, guessed the fact that just now further discussion of the event would be distasteful to Mary, and so she betook herself discreetly to a cigarette and the illustrations of a popular magazine devoted to the stage.As for the man, his reticence was really from a fear lest in speaking at all he might speak too freely, might betray the pervasive violence of his feeling.So, he sat motionless and wordless, his eyes carefully avoiding Mary in order that she might not be disturbed by the invisible vibrations thus sent from one to another.Mary herself was shaken to the depths.A great weariness, a weariness that cried the worthlessness of all things, had fallen upon her.It rested leaden on her soul.It weighed down her body as well, though that mattered little indeed.Yet, since she could minister to that readily, she rose and went to a settee on the opposite side of the room where she arranged herself among the cushions in a posture more luxurious than her rather precise early training usually permitted her to assume in the presence of others.There she rested, and soon felt the tides of energy again flowing in her blood, and that same vitality, too, wrought healing even for her agonized soul, though more slowly.The perfect health of her gave her strength to recover speedily from the shock she had sustained.It was this health that made the glory of the flawless skin, white with a living white that revealed the coursing blood beneath, and the crimson lips that bent in smiles so tender, or so wistful, and the limpid eyes in which always lurked fires that sometimes burst into flame, the lustrous mass of undulating hair that sparkled in the sunlight like an aureole to her face or framed it in heavy splendors with its shadows, and the supple erectness of her graceful carriage, the lithe dignity of her every movement.

But, at last, she stirred uneasily and sat up.Garson accepted this as a sufficient warrant for speech.

"You know--Aggie told you--that Cassidy was up here from Headquarters.He didn't put a name to it, but I'm on." Mary regarded him inquiringly, and he continued, putting the fact with a certain brutal bluntness after the habit of his class."Iguess you'll have to quit seeing young Gilder.The bulls are wise.His father has made a holler.

"Don't let that worry you, Joe," she said tranquilly.She allowed a few seconds go by, then added as if quite indifferent: "I was married to Dick Gilder this morning." There came a squeal of amazement from Aggie, a start of incredulity from Garson.

"Yes," Mary repeated evenly, "I was married to him this morning.

That was my important engagement," she added with a smile toward Aggie.For some intuitive reason, mysterious to herself, she did not care to meet the man's eyes at that moment.

Aggie sat erect, her baby face alive with worldly glee.

"My Gawd, what luck!" she exclaimed noisily."Why, he's a king fish, he is.Gee! But I'm glad you landed him!""Thank you," Mary said with a smile that was the result of her sense of humor rather than from any tenderness.

It was then that Garson spoke.He was a delicate man in his sensibilities at times, in spite of the fact that he followed devious methods in his manner of gaining a livelihood.So, now, he put a question of vital significance.

"Do you love him?"

The question caught Mary all unprepared, but she retained her self-control sufficiently to make her answer in a voice that to the ordinary ear would have revealed no least tremor.

"No," she said.She offered no explanation, no excuse, merely stated the fact in all its finality.

Aggie was really shocked, though for a reason altogether sordid, not one whit romantic.

"Ain't he young?" she demanded aggressively."Ain't he good-looking, and loose with his money something scandalous? If I met up with a fellow as liberal as him, if he was three times his age, I could simply adore him!"It was Garson who pressed the topic with an inexorable curiosity born of his unselfish interest in the woman concerned.

"Then, why did you marry him?" he asked.The sincerity of him was excuse enough for the seeming indelicacy of the question.

Besides, he felt himself somehow responsible.He had given back to her the gift of life, which she had rejected.Surely, he had the right to know the truth.

It seemed that Mary believed her confidence his due, for she told him the fact.

"I have been working and scheming for nearly a year to do it,"she said, with a hardening of her face that spoke of indomitable resolve."Now, it's done." A vindictive gleam shot from her violet eyes as she added: "It's only the beginning, too."Garson, with the keen perspicacity that had made him a successful criminal without a single conviction to mar his record, had seized the implication in her statement, and now put it in words.

"Then, you won't leave us? We're going on as we were before?"The hint of dejection in his manner had vanished."And you won't live with him?""Live with him?" Mary exclaimed emphatically."Certainly not!"Aggie's neatly rounded jaw dropped in a gape of surprise that was most unladylike.

"You are going to live on in this joint with us?" she questioned, aghast.

"Of course." The reply was given with the utmost of certainty.

Aggie presented the crux of the matter.

"Where will hubby live?"

There was no lessening of the bride's composure as she replied, with a little shrug.

"Anywhere but here."

Aggie suddenly giggled.To her sense of humor there was something vastly diverting in this new scheme of giving bliss to a fond husband.

"Anywhere but here," she repeated gaily."Oh, won't that be nice--for him? Oh, yes! Oh, quite so! Oh, yes, indeed--quite so--so!"Garson, however, was still patient in his determination to apprehend just what had come to pass.

"Does he understand the arrangement?" was his question.

"No, not yet," Mary admitted, without sign of embarrassment.