"I'm afraid I can't commiserate you," returned Allingford, laughing, "for I'm guilty of doing the very same thing myself, and my bride elect has no idea of our destination. She spends most of her spare time in trying to guess it."

At this moment a card was handed to Allingford, who said: "Why, here is my best man, Jack Carrington. You know him, don't you? I wonder what can have started him on my trail," and he requested the page to show him up.

A moment later Carrington entered the room. He was one of the best-dressed, most perfect-mannered young men in London, the friend of every one who knew him, a thoroughly delightful and irresponsible creature. To-day, however, there was a seriousness about his face that proclaimed his mission to be of no very pleasant character.

After greeting his friends, he asked for a few words in private with his princ.i.p.al, and as a result of this colloquy Allingford excused himself to Scardsdale, saying that he must return to his lodgings at once, as Carrington had brought him news that his brother d.i.c.k had arrived unexpectedly from America, and was awaiting him there.

"What a delightful surprise for you!" exclaimed Scarsdale.

"Yes, very--of course," returned Allingford drily; and after a mutual interchange of congratulations on the events of the morrow, and regrets that neither could be at the wedding of the other, the Consul and his best man left the club.

"He did not seem over-enthusiastic at Carrington's news," mused Scarsdale, and then his mind turned to his own affairs.

It was not astonishing that Robert Allingford received the news of his brother's arrival without any show of rejoicing. A family skeleton is never an enjoyable possession, but when it is not even decently interred, but very much alive, and in the shape of a brother who has attained notoriety as a black sheep of an unusually intense dye, it may be looked upon as little less than a curse.

Yet there were redeeming qualities about d.i.c.k Allingford. In spite of his thoroughly bad name, he was one of the most kind-hearted and engaging of men, while the way in which he had managed his own and his brother's property left nothing to be desired. Moreover, he was quite in his element among his miners. Indeed his qualities, good and bad, were of a kind that endeared him to them. He loved the good things of this life, however, in a wholly uncontrollable manner, and, as his income afforded almost unlimited scope for these desires, his achievements would have put most yellow-covered novels to the blush. d.i.c.k's redeeming virtue was a blind devotion to his elder brother, from whom he demanded unlimited advice and a.s.sistance in extricating him from a thousand-and-one sc.r.a.pes, and inexhaustible patience and forgiveness for those peccadilloes. When Robert had taken a public office in England it was on the distinct understanding that Richard should confine his attentions to America, and so far he had not violated the contract. The Consul had taken care that his brother should not be informed of the day of his marriage until it was too late for him to attend in person, for he shuddered to think of the rig that Richard would run in staid and conventional English society. Accordingly he hastened to his lodgings, full of anxious fore-bodings. On arrival his worst fears were fulfilled.

d.i.c.k received him with open arms, very affectionate, very penitent, and very drunk. From that gentleman's somewhat disconnected description the Consul obtained a lurid inkling of what seemed to have been a triumphal progress of unrestrained dissipation from Southampton to London, of which indignant barmaids and a wrecked four-in-hand formed the most redeeming features.

"Now explain yourself!" cried Robert in wrath, at the conclusion of his brother's recital. "What do you mean by this disgraceful conduct, and why are you in England at all?"

"Saw 'proaching marriage--newspaper," hiccoughed d.i.c.k--"took first steamer."

"What did you come for?" demanded Allingford sternly.

"Come? Congratulate you--see the bride."

"Not on your life!" exclaimed the Consul. "You are beastly drunk and not fit for decent society."

"Fault--railroad company--bad whisky," explained the unregenerate one.

"I'll take your word for it," replied his brother. "You ought to be a judge of whisky. But you won't go to my wedding unless you are sober."

And he rang for his valet.

"This is my brother, Parsons," he remarked to that individual when he entered. "You may put him to bed at once. Use my room for the purpose, and engage another for me for to-night."

"Yes, sir," replied his valet, who was too well trained to betray any emotion.

"When you have got him settled," continued the Consul, "lock him in, and let him stay till morning." With which he straightway departed, leaving his stupefied brother to the tender mercies of the shocked and sedate Parsons.

Allingford stood a good deal in awe of his valet, and dreaded to see the reproachful look of outraged dignity which he knew would greet him on his return. So he again sought the club, intending to find Scarsdale and continue their conversation; but that gentleman had departed, and the Consul was forced to console himself with a brandy and soda, and settle down to a quiet hour of reflection.

He had been engaged upwards of three months, and, it is needless to say, had learned much in that s.p.a.ce of time. An engagement is a liberal education to any man, for it presents a series of entirely new problems to be solved. He ceases to think of and for himself alone, and the accuracy with which he can adjust himself to these novel conditions determines the success or failure of his married life. Robert Allingford, however, was engaged to a woman of another nation; of his own race, indeed, and speaking his own tongue, but educated under widely differing standards and ideals, and on a plane of comparative simplicity when viewed in the light of her complex American sister. The little English girl was an endless mystery to him, and it was only in later life that he discovered that he was constantly endowing her with a complicated nature which she did not possess. He could not understand a woman who generally--I do not say invariably, for Marion Steele was human after all, but who generally meant what she said, whose pleasures were healthy and direct, and who was really simple and genuinely ignorant of most things pertaining to the world worldly. He knew that world well enough--ten years of mining had taught him that--and he had been left to its tender mercies when still a boy, with no relatives except his younger brother, who, as may well be imagined, was rather a burden than a help.

But if Robert Allingford had seen the rough side of life, it had taught him to understand human nature, and, as he had been blessed with a large heart and a considerable measure of adaptability, he managed to get on very well on both sides of the Atlantic. True, he seldom appreciated what the British mind held to contain worth; but he was tolerant, and his tolerance begat, unconsciously, sympathy. On the other hand, the Consul was as much of a mystery to his fiancee as she had ever been to him. In her eyes he was always doing the unexpected. For one thing, she never knew when to take him seriously, and was afraid of what he might do or say; but she soon learned to trust him implicitly, and to estimate him at his true sterling worth.

In short, both had partially adjusted themselves to each other, and were likely to live very happily, with enough of the unknown in their characters to keep them from becoming bored. Allingford had never spoken definitely to his fiancee concerning his younger brother, and she knew instinctively that it was a subject to be avoided. To her father she had said something, but Sir Peter had little interest in his children's affairs beyond seeing that they were suitably married; and since he was satisfied with the settlements and the man, was content to leave well enough alone.

The Consul, therefore, thought himself justified in saying nothing about the unexpected arrival of his brother, especially as the chances of that gentleman's being in a fit state to appear at the wedding seemed highly problematical.

Next morning there were no signs of repentance or of d.i.c.k; for if a deserted bed, an open window, and the smashed gla.s.s of a neighbouring skylight signified anything, it was that Mr. Richard Allingford was still unregenerate and at large.

The bridal day dawned bright and clear, and Carrington lunched with the Consul just before the ceremony, which, thanks to English law, took place at that most impossible hour of the day, 2.30 P.M.

The bridegroom floundered through the intricacies of the service, signed his name in the vestry, and achieved his carriage in a kind of dream; but woke up sufficiently to the realities of life at the reception, to endure with fort.i.tude the indiscriminate kissing of scores of new relations. Then he drank his own health and the healths of other people, and at last escaped upstairs to prepare for the journey and have a quiet fifteen minutes with his best man.

"Now remember," he said to that irresponsible individual, "you are the only one who knows our destination this evening, and if you breathe it to a soul I'll come back and murder you."

"My dear fellow," replied Carrington, "you don't suppose, after I've endured weeks of cross-questioning and inquisitorial advances from the bride and her family, that I am going to strike my colours and give the whole thing away at the eleventh hour."

"You have been a trump, Jack," rejoined the Consul, "and I only wish you may be as happy some time as I am to-day."

"It is your day; don't worry about my affairs," returned Carrington, with a forced laugh which gave colour to the popular report that the only vulnerable point in his armour of good nature lay in his impecunious condition and the consequent impossibility of his marrying on his own account.

It was only a pa.s.sing cloud, however, and he hastened to change the subject, saying: "Come, you are late already, and a bride must not be kept waiting."

Allingford was thereupon hustled downstairs, and wept upon from all quarters, and his life was threatened with rice and old shoes; but he reached the street somehow with Mrs. Robert in tow, and, barring the circ.u.mstance that in his agitation he had embraced the butler instead of Sir Peter, he acquitted himself very well under the trying ordeal.

As they drove to the station his wife was strangely quiet, and he rallied her on the fact.

"Why," he said, "you haven't spoken since we started."

Her face grew troubled. "I was wondering----" she began.

"If you would be happy?" he asked. "I'll do my best."

"No, no, I'm sure of that, only--do tell me where we are going."

The Consul laughed. "You women are just the same all the world over,"

he replied, but otherwise did not commit himself; but his wife noticed that he looked worried and anxious, and that he breathed a sigh of unmistakable relief as their train drew out of Waterloo Station. She did not know that the one cloud which he had feared might darken his wedding day had now been dispelled: he had seen nothing of his brother.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH THE LONDON AND SOUTH WESTERN RAIL-WAY ACCOMPLISHES WHAT THE MARRIAGE SERVICE FORBIDS

It might be supposed that the heir to "The Towers" and Lady Scarsdale's very considerable property would meet with some decided opposition from his family to his proposed alliance with Mabel Vernon, an unknown American, who, though fairly provided with this world's goods, could in no sense be termed a great heiress. But the fact of the matter was that the prejudices of his own people were as nothing when compared with those of Aunt Eliza. In the first place she did not wish her niece to marry at all, on the ground that no man was good enough for her; and in the second place she had decided that if Mabel must have a partner in life, he was to be born under the Stars and Stripes. Her wrath, therefore, was great when she heard of the engagement, and she declared that she had a good mind to cut the young couple off with a cent, a threat that meant something from a woman who had bought corner lots in Chicago immediately after the great fire, and still held them. Scarsdale never forgot his first interview with her after she had learned the news.

"I mistrusted you were round for no good," she said, "though I wasn't quite certain which one of us you wanted."

He bit his lip.

"There's nothing to laugh at, young man," she continued severely; "marrying me would have been no joke."

"I'm sure, Miss Cogbill----" began Scarsdale.

"You call me Aunt Eliza in the future," she broke in; "that is who I am, and if I choose to remember your wife when I'm gone she'll be as rich as a d.u.c.h.ess, as I dare say you know."