He shook Whyland's hand gratefully at parting and held Medora's with a firm pressure as long as he dared and longer than he realized. It was a pressure that seemed to recognise her at last as an individual woman, and what his hand did not say his face said and said clearly. And as soon as he was a man again his tongue should say something too, and say it more clearly still.

Medora's image travelled along with him on the dingy window-pane and intercepted all the well-beloved phenomena of earliest-awakening spring.

One slide followed another, like the pictures of a magic lantern. Now she was pouring tea, now she was baking bread; sometimes she was playing the violin, sometimes--and oftenest--she was measuring medicines or on guard against draughts. In any event the sum total was a matchless a.s.semblage of grace, charm, talent, sympathy, efficiency. "I am not worthy of her,"

he said humbly. "But I must have her," he added, with resolution. He was not the author of this ruthless masculine paradox.

After another month of rest and of home nursing Abner undertook a second tour (in Iowa and Wisconsin, this time) to make sure of his re-established health and to build up again his shattered finances,--for sickness, even in the lap of luxury, is expensive.

He had refused as considerately as he could an offer from Whyland himself to do literary work. The Pence-Whyland syndicate had lately secured control of one of the daily newspapers, and Whyland had suggested semi-weekly articles at Abner's own figure. But Abner could not quite bring himself to print in a sheet that was the open and avowed champion of privilege and corruption.

"You think you won't, then?" asked Whyland, at the door of the Pullman.

"I don't believe I can," replied Abner mournfully.

"Oh, yes, you can too," returned Whyland. "In a week or two more you'll be as strong as ever."

"I--I think I'd rather not," said Abner, tendering an apologetic hand.

He wrote to Medora endless plaints about the discomforts of country hotels; and she, remembering how he had once luxuriated in these very crudities--he had called them authentic, characteristic, and other long words ending in _tic_--smiled broadly. It seemed as if that fortnight in the Whyland house had finally done for him.

"He will become quite like the rest of us in time," she said;--"and in no great time, either!"

In the early days of June Abner spoke. Medora listened and considered.

"I am like Clytie Summers----" she began slowly.

"You are not a bit like her!" interrupted Abner, with all haste.

"In one respect," Medora finished: "when I get married I want to get married for good. As Clytie says, it is the most satisfactory way in the long run, and the long run is what I have in mind."

Abner flushed. "I can promise you that, I think."

"You must."

"I do."

"We will dismiss the new theory."

"If you demand it."

The idea of limited matrimonial partnership therefore pa.s.sed away. Then there loomed up the question of an engagement-ring.

"You agree with me, I hope," said Abner, "that all these symbolical follies might very well be done away with?"

"No," said Medora firmly; "folly--sheer, utter folly--claims me for a month at least. And as for symbols, they are the very bread of the race, and I am as much of the human tribe as anybody else is."

A few days later Medora was wearing her engagement-ring.

This step accomplished, Abner felt himself free to scale down to a minimum the customary attentions of a courtship.

Medora protested. "You are no more than a man, and I am no less than a woman. You must give all that a man is expected to give and I must have all that a woman is accustomed to receive."

The engagement lasted through the summer, and Medora was married at the farm in October. Abner's parents came the thirty miles across country to their son's wedding. His father disclosed a singularly buoyant and expansive nature; he lived in the blessings the day brought forth, and considered not too deeply--as the poet once counselled--the questions that had kept his son in the fume and heat of unquenchable discussion.

Mrs. Joyce was quiet, demure, rock-rooted in her self-respecting gravity--a sweet, sympathetic, winning little woman. She advanced at once into the bustle of the household, and it was plain that nature had endowed her with a fondness for work for work's very sake, and that she was proud of her own activity and thoroughness. Abner, everybody saw, was immensely wrapped up in her. "A man who makes such a good son," said Giles to his wife, "will make a good husband."

"I expect him to," said Medora, overhearing. "And I intend to put on the last few finishing touches myself."

XXIV

One after another several carriages dismissed their occupants with slams that carried far and wide on the crisp air of the early December evening, and a variety of m.u.f.fled figures toiled up the broad granite steps and disappeared in the maw of the cavernous round-arched entrance-porch. At both front and flank of the house a score of curtained windows permitted the escape of hints of hospitable intentions; and in point of fact Mr.

and Mrs. Palmer Pence were giving a dinner for Mr. and Mrs. Adrian Bond.

Adrian and Clytie were but lately back from their wedding-trip. Adrian, after several years of unproductive traffic in exotic literature, had finally made a hit; he had been able not only to lay a telling piece of work at the dear one's feet, but also--by a slight discounting of future certainties--to put a good deal of money in his purse. He had at last found a way to turn his "European atmosphere" and his "historical perspective" to profitable account,--to write something that thousands were willing to read and to pay for. Thirty thousand was the number thus far; and that number, reached within six weeks, meant a hundred thousand before the "run" should be over. His method involved simply a familiar offhand treatment of royalty, backed up by an excess of beauty, bravery, sword-play, costume, and irresponsible and impossible incident. "The only wonder is," he said, "that I shouldn't have taken up with this before.

Anybody can do it; almost everybody else has done it."

Clytie was delighted by this sudden showy stroke of fortune, and readily allowed Adrian's long string of hints and intimations--they had come rolling in thick and fast through the advancing summer--to solidify into a concrete proposal.

"With this and my little investments," he said fondly, "we might rub along very decently."

"I hope so," said Clytie.

"Let's try."

"Let's."

The Whylands were also of those who climbed the granite steps. Mrs.

Whyland had required a little urging, as on some previous occasions.

"I hope you won't make difficulties," her husband had said. "Mrs. Pence is a nice enough woman, as women go; and since my new relations with her husband...."

"Well, if you think it necessary," she returned resignedly. At need she might find the means to avoid anything like a real intimacy; and, after all, there would be a certain satisfaction in finally seeing, with her own eyes, Clytie Summers as somebody's actual wife.

Last to arrive were the Joyces. Medora wore the wedding-gown that had astonished the country neighbours for ten miles around, and Abner was in the customary evening dress.

"A bachelor and a genius," Medora had declared, "may enjoy some lat.i.tude, but a married man must consider his wife."

Abner had dutifully considered. He who considers is like him who hesitates--lost.

"There will be wine," said Medora. "Drink it. There may be toasts. Be ready to respond."

Abner could think on his feet--speech would not fail. And his fortnight with the Whylands had reconciled him to more things than wine.

"Let me be proud of you," said Medora.

Abner shook to his centre. Had he married a Delilah and a Beatrice in one?

"And don't let's talk any more about our book than they talk of theirs,"