There is little to be gained, however, from speculation as to the probable outcome of conditions which did not obtain, and the trivial s.p.a.ce of time which was demanded for the shaking-out and re-coaling of a furnace was largely responsible for John D. Curtis and Hermione Beauregard Grandison being made man and wife.

Curiously enough, the tying of this particular knot was facilitated by the fact that the clergyman was hale mentally but decrepit physically, and, as might be expected, resented the conclusion, long ago arrived at by his friends, that he was unfitted for work. He burgeoned with delight when a servant announced that two young people wanting to get married were waiting in the vestibule; he hobbled out of the library, where he was poring over an essay on the Sixtine text of the Septuagint, and ushered them into a parlor. The room was not well-lighted, because of some defect in the electric installation, but the old gentleman--"Rev. Thomas J. Hughes" was the legend on the door-plate--bustled about in the liveliest way, and talked most cheerfully.

"Ah, young folk--as usual, leaving things to the last moment, and then in a desperate hurry," he chirped. "Got the license--yes? Complied with all the formalities? Of course, of course. Where's the ring?

You've _not_ forgotten the ring?"

Curtis and Hermione looked at each other in blank dismay; even Marcelle's aplomb yielded under this unforeseen strain, and her agitation showed itself in a gasping murmur:

"Oh dear! What shall we do now?"

Mr. Hughes positively chortled over their discomfiture. He limped to a secretaire, and opened a drawer.

"See what it is to have a long experience in these affairs," he cried.

"Do you fancy you are the first couple who failed to provide a ring?

Ah me! When I was quite a boy in the cloth I learnt the necessity of keeping rings in stock, so a jeweler friend of mind replenishes my store, and, when I sell one, I apply a small profit to a favorite charity of mine. The wearing of a wedding ring has no legal significance, but it is a fine old custom, and should be preserved.

Among the Romans the ring was a pledge, _pignus_, that the betrothal contract would be fulfilled. Pliny tells us that the ring, or circle, was of iron, but the ladies speedily determined that it should be of gold, and the Church went a step farther in recognizing it as a symbol of matrimony. Hence, perhaps, the Episcopal ring, and even the Ring of the Fisherman itself, though some authorities hold that signets--Ah, yes," for Curtis had intimated politely that the hour was growing late, "if the lady will say which of these rings fits; they are fifteen dollars each--cheaper, I believe, than you can buy them in Fifth Avenue. . . . Ah, _that_ one? Very well. Now, as to the form of service?"

"The full marriage rite," said Curtis.

"Precisely, just what I would have suggested. I adhere to the time-honored formula. Now, let me examine the license--my eyes fail me a little, but I take the utmost pains to be accurate, because accuracy is of the greatest importance. . . . Yes, yes, State of New York--what are the names?"

"John D. Curtis and Hermione Beauregard Grandison," said Curtis. His tone was so calm and self-confident that even the prospective bride was deaf for a moment to the vital significance of the words. Then she whispered tremulously:

"Are you not making some mistake?"

"No," he replied, looking her straight in the eyes.

The minister, whose ears partook of the defects in his other faculties, caught the word "mistake."

"This is no place for mistakes, my dear young lady," he said, "A nice young couple like you should only require to be married once in your lives. Take my advice, and stick to one another in sunshine and in storm, and you shall be blessed even unto the fourth generation. . . .

Now, all is in order. . . . Is this your witness?" and he nodded affably toward Marcelle. "Shall we have one other? William Jenkins, my factotum, has been privileged to a.s.sist on many such occasions. . . . Wil-li-am!"

He raised his voice, and a wizened little man appeared suddenly, having evidently waited outside the door until he was summoned.

Then, with due ritual, John Delancy Curtis and Hermione Beauregard Grandison were joined in the bonds of wedlock, and, by the time Mr.

Hughes had completed the ceremony, he had p.r.o.nounced their names so often, and was so accustomed to their form and sound, that when he filled in the certificate annexed to the license, "John D. Curtis"

appeared therein in place of "Jean de Courtois."

Hermione was in a pitiable state of suppressed excitement before the ordeal was concluded. The solemnity and impressiveness of the vows she was taking disturbed the serenity with which she had schooled herself to regard the marriage as "make-believe." She was frightened at her own daring. A dread that the tie she was so lightly a.s.suming might be harder to undo than she had contemplated was fluttering her heart and almost paralyzing her limbs. But Curtis was unemotional as an icicle; or, at any rate, he looked it, which was all that the half-hysterical girl by his side could ascertain by an occasional timid glance. The fact lent her a sort of courage to persevere to the end, and she signed her maiden name for the last time with a numb confidence in the man whom she had, so to speak, bargained for as a husband in an emergency.

Curtis did not fail to note that the aged clergyman's handwriting was crabbed and palsied as his bent frame. None could tell, for certain, whether he wrote "Jean" or "John," "Courtois" or "Curtis," though, indeed, the balance of probability inclined to the latter of the two names, Christian and surname, since those were indubitably what he meant to write.

Then, having stated his fee, and been paid for the ring, he handed Hermione a copy of the certificate.

"Treasure that during all your days, Mrs. Curtis," he said. "May it be a charter of lasting happiness and content!"

Mrs. Curtis! Another shock! Hermione felt that she would scream if there were many more such. And the pressure of the little gold ring on the third finger of her left hand was becoming intolerable. Iron, it used to be, said the minister, and a band of iron it seemed to have become since this man whom she had taken, so completely on trust had placed it there.

On the way out, Curtis tipped Jenkins, tipped him so lavishly that a queer little voice squeaked from a queer little face:

"Thank you, sir. Fair weather to both you and your wife, and a safe berth when you drop anchor!"

So Jenkins had been a sailor, for none but a sh.e.l.l-back would put his good wishes in such nautical lingo.

"I have just finished one long voyage, but seem to have begun another,"

said Curtis to his "wife." He accompanied the words with a laugh, and was really talking for the sake of breaking an awkward silence. They were descending a few steps from the door, and he noticed that a private automobile was speeding down the street from the same direction as the taxi had taken. It swung close to the curb, and was pulled up barely a yard short of the waiting cab, whose engine the driver was starting with the crank.

A shout came from the interior, and a man leaped out. The street was rather dark in that part, but Hermione recognized the stranger instantly.

"Count Va.s.silan!" she cried, and the fear in her voice thrilled Curtis to the core.

Almost as quickly, the man now running along the sidewalk knew that a long chase had ended, or he fancied that it had ended, which is not always the same thing.

"Here we are, Valletort!" he shouted. "Got 'em, by ----! You see after Hermione! I'll attend to this d--d Frenchman!"

Curtis gently disengaged the clasp of a tiny hand on his arm, a clasp which was eloquent of a woman's sore need and complete trust. He stepped forward to meet the Count, a stoutly built, heavy man, who had reckoned on closing with an undersized Frenchman. There was no time to rectify mistakes. Curtis met his rival's onset with a beautiful half-arm jab on the nose. Scientifically, it was perfect, since the blow was delivered at the back of the Count's head with complete disregard of intervening tissues, and its recipient went down like one of those pins which succ.u.mbed so regularly to the ball bowled by a colossal fist in the Broadway electric sign. The only difference was that the pin fell noiselessly, whereas Count Va.s.silan roared like a bull in anguish.

In the next instant Curtis, who, for a mild-mannered person, appeared to possess a singularly close acquaintance with the ethics of a street row, sprang at the automobile, pushed back a man who was getting out, slammed the door, seized the speed levers, and bent them hopelessly with a violent tug.

A swearing chauffeur fumbled in the seat, but was in no real hurry to alight, because he had noted the Count's _debacle_, and Curtis ran to the two cowering women.

"In with you!" he said cheerily, adding, with a grin at the driver:

"Fifty for you if we win clear. Now, be a sport!"

Of course, the driver of a taxi would be a sport. In five minutes he pulled up somewhere in Madison Avenue, and, leaning back and twisting his neck, bawled:

"Where to _now_, sir?"

CHAPTER IV

AN INTERLUDE

The appearance on the scene of the Earl of Valletort and Count Ladislas Va.s.silan at a moment which, though undeniably critical, might be described as either opportune or inopportune--the choice of an adjective depending solely on the varying points of view of the one who gave and the one who received that powerful thump on the nose--was due to no feat of skill on the part of the engine-room staff of the _Switzerland_, but to a judicious combination of wireless telegraphy, money, and influence.

When it became evident, very early in the morning, that the vessel might, with luck, crawl up to the quarantine station about midnight, urgent messages were sent to two consulates and the Port Authorities of New York. In the result, a fast steam-yacht drew up alongside the vessel when she took the pilot on board, and the two magnates and their baggage were transferred from the disabled liner to the deck of the trim yacht.

She made praiseworthy efforts to reach a quay and a batch of Customs officers before eight o'clock, but failed by five minutes.

Consequently, some slight delay was experienced, and, with the best of good will on the part of the officials, the two fuming pa.s.sengers could not fling themselves into a waiting automobile until nearly twenty minutes past the hour.

Then, however, they made up for lost time. Intrusting their belongings to a porter and a taxi, with instructions to proceed to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, they bade the chauffeur travel at top speed to No. 1000 59th Street. Many times were they sworn at en route by endangered pedestrians and enraged drivers of horsed vehicles; the growing torrent of ill wishes thus engendered may have exercised some unrecognized form of telepathy at No. 1000, because a regulating valve in the steam-heat apparatus, which had never proved intractable before, suddenly took it into its metallic head to go wrong. Thus, the elevator man was not aware of a good deal of ringing of electric bells and hammering on the locked door of flat Number 10.

Ultimately, the valve resumed its normal functions, for no cause that a hot and oily human being could perceive other than the occasional "cussedness" which inanimate objects can be capable of; while surveying it wrathfully, he awoke to the racket in the upper regions.

Behold him, then, angry and perspiring, vowing by all his G.o.ds that he had other duties to perform than eternally watching the comings and goings of the mansion's occupants; being a free-born American of Irish ancestry, name of Rafferty, he would certainly have bandied contumely with Count Ladislas Va.s.silan had not the Earl intervened. The Hungarian had addressed Rafferty as though he were a dog: the Englishman, more certain of his social predominance, treated him as a person endowed with reason.