"I know it!" the girl said, quickly. "But I wanted you to know. I want you to know why I'm running away from them all." Relief rang in her voice as his delighted eyes showed no cloud. "That's all!" she said.

"Norma, I can't--my G.o.d!--I can't tell whether I'm awake or dreaming!"

Wolf was all joy again. "We'll--wait a minute!--we'll get a taxi; I'll telephone the factory later----" He paused suddenly. "Mother's in East Orange with Rose. Shall we go there first?"

"No; you're to do as I say from now on, Wolf!"

"Ah, you darling!"

"And I say let's be married first, and then go and see Rose."

"Norma----" He stopped in the street, and put his two hands on her shoulders. "I'll be a good husband to you. You'll never be sorry you trusted me. Dearest, it's--well, it's the most wonderful thing that ever happened in my whole life! Here's our taxi--wait a minute; what day is this?"

"Whatever else it is," she said, half-laughing and half-crying, "I know it is my wedding day!"

CHAPTER XXIV

To Rose and her mother, Wolf's and Norma's marriage remained one of the beautiful surprises of life; one of the things that, as sane mortals, they had dared neither to dream nor hope. Life had been full enough for mother and daughter, and sweet enough, that March morning, even without the miracle. The baby had been bathed, in a flood of dancing sunshine, and had had his breakfast out under the budding bare network of the grape arbour. The little house had been put into spotless order while he slept, and Rose had pinned on her winter hat, and gone gaily to market, with exactly one dollar and seventy-five cents in her purse. And she had come back to find her mother standing beside the shabby baby-coach, in the tiny backyard, looking down thoughtfully at the sleeping child, and evidently under the impression that she was peeling the apples, in the yellow bowl that rested on her broad hip. Rose had also studied her son for a few awed seconds, and then, reminding her mother that it was past twelve o'clock, had led the way toward tea-making, and the general heating and toasting and mincing of odds and ends for luncheon. And they had been in the kitchen, talking over the last sc.r.a.ps of this meal, when----

When there had been laughter and voices at the open front doorway, and when Mrs. Sheridan's startled "Wolf!" had been followed by Rose's surprised "Norma!" Then they had come in, Wolf and Norma, laughing and excited and bubbling with their great news. And in joy and tears, confused interruptions and exclamations, explanations that got nowhere, and a plentiful distribution of kisses, somehow it got itself told. They had been married an hour ago--Norma was Wolf's wife!

The girl was radiant. Never in her life had these three who loved her seen her so beautiful, so enchantingly confident and gay. Rose and her mother had some little trouble, later on, in patching the sequence of events together for the delighted but bewildered Harry, Rose's husband.

But there could be no doubt, even to the shrewd eyes of her Aunt Kate, that Norma was ecstatically happy. Her mad kisses for Rose, the laughter with which she described the expedition to bank and jeweller, the license bureau and the church in Jersey City--for in order to have the ceremony performed immediately it had been necessary to be married in New Jersey--her delicious boldness toward the awed and rapturous and almost stupefied Wolf, were all proof that she entertained not even the usual girlish misgivings of the wedding day.

"You see, I've not been all tired out with trousseau and engagement affairs and photographers and milliners and all that," she explained, gaily. "I've only got what's in my bag there, but I've wired Aunt Marianna, and told her to tell them all. And we'll be back on Monday--wait until I ask my husband; Wolftone, dear, shall we be back on Monday?"

She had the baby in her lap; they were all in the dining-room. Rose had been a.s.sured that the bride and groom were not hungry; they had had sandwiches somewhere--some time--oh, down near the City Hall in Jersey City. But Rose had made more tea, and more toast, and she had opened her own best plum jam, and they were all eating with the heartiness of children. Presently Norma went to get in Aunt Kate's lap, and asked her if she was glad, and made herself so generally engaging and endearing, with her slender little body clasped in the big motherly arms and her soft face resting against the older, weather-beaten face, that Wolf did not dare to look at her.

They were going to Atlantic City; neither had ever been there, and if this warm weather lasted it would be lovely, even in early spring. It was almost four o'clock when the younger women went upstairs for the freshening touches that Norma declared she needed, and then Wolf and his mother were left alone.

He knelt down beside the big rocker in which she was ensconced with the baby, and she put one arm about him, and kissed the big thick crest of his brown hair.

"You're glad, aren't you, Mother?"

"Glad! I've prayed for it ever since she came to me, years ago," Mrs.

Sheridan answered. But after a moment she added, gravely: "She's pure gold, our Norma. They've sickened her, just as I knew they would! But, Wolf, she may swing back for a little while. She's like that; she always has been. She was no more than a baby when she'd be as naughty as she could be, and then so good that I was afraid I was going to lose her. Go gently with her, Wolf; be patient with her, dear. She's going to make a magnificent woman, some day."

"She's a magnificent woman, now," the man said, simply. "She's too good for me, I know that. She's--you can't think how cunning she is--how wonderful she's been, all day!"

"Go slowly," his mother said again. "She's only a baby, Wolf; she's excited and romantic and generous because she's such a baby! Don't make her sorry that she's given herself to you so--so trusting----"

She hesitated.

"I'll take care of her!" Wolf a.s.serted, a little gruffly.

There was time for no more; they heard her step on the stairs, and she came dancing back with Rose. Her cheeks were burning with excitement; she gave her aunt and cousin quick good-bye kisses, and caught the baby's soft little cheek to her own velvety one. She and Wolf would be back on Sunday night, they promised; as they ran down the path the sun slipped behind a leaden cloud, and all the world darkened suddenly. A brisk whirl of springtime wind shook the rose bushes in Rose's little garden, and there was a cool rushing in the air that promised rain.

But Norma was still carried along on the high tide of supreme emotion, and to Wolf the day was radiant with unearthly sunshine, and perfumed with all the flowers of spring. The girl had flung herself so wholeheartedly into her role that it was not enough to bewilder and please Wolf, she must make him utterly happy. Dear old Wolf--always ready to protect her, always good and big and affectionate, and ready to laugh at her silliest jokes, and ready to meet any of her problems sympathetically and generously. Her beauty, her irresistible charm as she hung on his arm and chattered of what they would do when they started housekeeping, almost dizzied him.

She liked everything: their wheeling deep upholstered seats in the train; the seaside hotel, with the sea rolling so near in the soft twilight; the dinner for which they found themselves so hungry.

Afterward they climbed laughing into a big chair, and were pushed along between the moving lines of other chairs, far up the long boardwalk. And Norma, with her soft loose glove in Wolf's big hand, leaned back against the curved wicker seat, and looked at the little lighted shops, and listened to the sc.r.a.pe of feet and chatter of tongues and the solemn roll and crash of the waves, and stared up childishly at the arch of stars that looked so far and calm above this petty noise and glare. She was very tired, every muscle in her body ached, but she was content.

Wolf was taking care of her and there would be no more lonely vigils and agonies of indecision and pain. She thought of Christopher with a sort of childish quiet triumph; she had solved the whole matter for them both, superbly.

Wolf was a silent man with persons he did not know. But he never was silent with Norma; he always had a thousand things to discuss with her.

The lights and the stir on the boardwalk inspired him to all sorts of good-natured criticism and speculation, and they estimated just the expense and waste that went on there day by day.

"Really to have the ocean, Wolf, it would be so much nicer to be even in the wildest place--just rocks and coves. This is like having a lion in your front parlour!"

"Lord, Norma--when I got up this morning, if somebody had told me that I would be married, and down at Atlantic City to-night----!"

"I know; it's like a dream!"

"But you're not sorry, Norma; you're sure that I'm going to make you happy?" the man asked, in sudden anxiety.

"You always _have_, Wolf!" she answered, very simply.

He never really doubted it; it was a part of Wolf's healthy normal nature to believe what was good and loving. He was not exacting, not envious; he had no real understanding of her giddy old desires for wealth and social power. Wolf at twenty-five was working so hard and so interestedly, sleeping so deeply, eating his meals with such appet.i.te, and enjoying his rare idle time so heartily, that he had neither time nor inclination for vagaries. He had always been older than his years, schooled to feel that just good meals and a sure roof above him marked him as one of the fortunate ones of the earth, and of late his work in the big factory had been responsible enough, absorbing enough, and more than gratifying enough to satisfy him with his prospects. He was liked for himself, and he knew it, and he was already known for that strange one-sightedness, that odd little twist of mechanical vision, that sure knowledge of himself and his medium, that is genius. The joy of finding himself, and that the world needed him, had been strong upon Wolf during the last few months, and that Norma had come back to him seemed only a reason for fresh dedication to his work, an augury that life was going to be kind to him.

She was gone when he wakened the next morning, but he knew that the sea had an irresistible fascination for her, and followed her quite as surely as if she had left footprints on the clear and empty sands. He found her with her back propped against a low wooden bulkhead, her slender ankles crossed before her, her blue eyes fixed far out at sea.

She turned, and looked up at him from under the brim of her hat, and the man's heart turned almost sick with the depth of sudden adoration that shook him; so young, so friendly and simple and trusting was the ready smile, so infinitely endearing the touch of the warm fingers she slipped into his! He sat down beside her, and they dug their heels into the sand, and talked in low tones. The sun shone down on them kindly, and the waves curved and broke, and came rushing and slithering to their feet, and slid churning and foaming noisily under the pier near by.

Norma buried her husband's big hand in sand, and sifted sand through her slender fingers; sometimes she looked with her far-away look far out across the gently rocking ocean, and sometimes she brought her blue eyes gravely to his. And the new seriousness in them, the grave and n.o.ble sweetness that he read there, made Wolf suddenly feel himself no longer a boy, no longer free, but bound for ever to this exquisite and bewildering child who was a woman, or woman who was a child, sacredly bound to give her the best that there was in him of love and service and protection.

She showed him a new Norma, here on the sunshiny sands, one that he was to know better as the days went by. She had always deferred to his wisdom and his understanding, but she seemed to him mysteriously wise this morning--no longer the old little sister Norma, but a new, sage, keen-eyed woman, toward whom his whole being was flooded with humility and awe and utter, speechless adoration.

At nine o'clock, when nurses and children began to come down to the sh.o.r.e, they got to their feet, and wandered in to breakfast. And here, to his delight, she was suddenly the old mad-cap Norma again, healthily eager for ham and eggs and hot coffee, interested in everything, and bewitchingly pretty in whatever position she took.

"I wish we had the old 'bus, Nono," Wolf said. He usually spoke of his motor-car by this name. "They've been overhauling her in that Newark place. She was to be ready--by George, she was ready yesterday!"

"We'll go over--I'll come over and meet you next Sat.u.r.day," his young wife promised, busy with rolls and marmalade, "and you'll take me to lunch, and then we'll get the car, and go and take Rose and the baby for a ride!"

"Norma," the man exclaimed, suddenly struck with a sense of utter felicity, and leaning across the table to stop, for the minute, her moving fingers with the pressure of his own, "you haven't any idea how much I love you--I didn't know myself what it was going to mean! To have you come over to the factory, and to have somebody say that Mrs.

Sheridan is there, and to go to lunch--Dearest, do you realize how wonderful and how--well, how _wonderful_ it's going to be? Norma, I can't believe it. I can't believe that this is what love means to everybody. I can't believe that every man who marries his--his----"

"Girl," she supplied, laughing.

"Girl--but I didn't mean girl. I meant his ideal--the loveliest person he ever knew," Wolf said, with a new quickness of tongue that she knew was born of happiness. "I can't believe that just going to Childs'

restaurants, or taking the car out on Sunday, or any other fool thing we do, means to any man what it's going to mean to me! I just--well, I told you that. I just can't believe it!"

Two days later they came home for Sunday supper, and there was much simple joy and laughter in the little city apartment. Aunt Kate of course had fried chicken and coffee ice-cream for her four big children.

Harry Junior, awakening, was brought dewy and blinking to the table, where his Aunt Norma kissed the tears from his warm, round little cheeks, and gave him crumbs of sponge cake. Rose and Harry left at ten o'clock for their country home, leaving the precious baby for his grandmother and aunt to bring back the next day, but the other three sat talking and planning until almost midnight, and Kate could feast her eyes to her heart's content upon the picture of Wolf in his father's old leather chair, with Norma perched on the wide arm, one of her own arms about her husband's neck and their fingers locked together.

It was settled that they were to find a little house in East Orange, near Rose, and furnish it from top to bottom, and go to housekeeping immediately. Meanwhile, Norma must see the Melroses, and get her wedding announcements engraved, and order some new calling cards, and do a thousand things. She and Wolf must spend their evenings writing notes--and presents would be arriving----!

She made infinitesimal lists, and put them into her shopping bag, or stuck them in her mirror, but Wolf laughed at them all. And instead of disposing of them, they developed a demoralizing habit of wandering out into Broadway, in their old fashion, after dinner, looking into shop windows, drifting into little theatres, talking to beggars and taxi-cab men and policemen and strangers generally, mingling with the bubbling young life of the city that overflowed the sidewalks, and surged in and out of candy and drug stores, and sat talking on park benches deep into the soft young summer nights.