"Then wait--wait!" Persis pleaded. "Marriage is risky enough when there is no worry about money. But when the bills come in at the door love flies out at the window."

Stowe seized Alice's hands with ardor. "Don't listen to her, Alice."

"But I'm frightened now," Alice wailed. "It's for your sake, Stowe. We mustn't--not yet. And now may I please go home where I can cry my eyes out."

Persis in triumph called the address to the chauffeur. Stowe Webb, in the depths of dejection, left the cab and stared after it with eyes of bitter reproach.

Alice's tears were standing out like orient pearls impaled on eyelashes as she said good-by to Persis at her own curb.

"You hate me now," said Persis, "but you'll be very glad this happened some day."

"I don't hate you," said Alice. "I know you're terribly wise; but I--I wish you hadn't come along."

Persis laughed tenderly. "It's only for your happiness, Alice darling.

Well, good-by!"

Persis felt that she had done an honest day's work of Samaritan wisdom, and ordered the cab to make haste to her dressmaker. A he-dressmaker it was, who, like a fashionable doctor, found it profitable to behave like a gorilla and abuse his clients. He turned on Persis and stormed up and down his show-room. He threatened to throw out all her costumes. She bore with him as meekly as if she were a ragged seamstress pleading for a job instead of the bride-elect of an Enslee.

When she had thus appeased his wrath he changed his tune to a rhapsody.

She was to be the most beautiful bride that ever dragged a train up an aisle, and she should drag the most beautiful train that ever followed a maid to the altar and a wife away.

CHAPTER XLIX

Persis was not the only busy person in New York. Willie was kept on the jump preparing his share of the performance. The ushers were to be chosen, and their gifts, and a dinner given to them; and his list of friends to receive announcements and invitations must be made up, and the bride's gift selected, and the itinerary of the honeymoon arranged, his yacht put into commission, and a dinner of farewell to bachelorhood accepted and endured.

He hardly caught a glimpse of Persis all this while, and when he heard her voice on the telephone it was only to receive some new list of ch.o.r.es. He missed the billing and cooing that he knew belonged to these conversations. His heart ached to be a.s.sured of Persis' love; but she was incapable of even imitating the amorous note with him. When he pleaded for tendernesses she put him off as best she could by blaming her brusqueness on her overwork, as one who does not wish to sign oneself "Yours faithfully" or "affectionately" or even "truly" writes "Yours hastily."

But Willie's incessant prayer for love hara.s.sed her. It was a phase of him that had been unimportant hitherto. And it alarmed her a little. It would have given her greater uneasiness if she had not had so many other matters to worry her, if she had not had so many fascinating excitements to divert her.

Forbes was busy, too. Senator Tait had easily arranged his appointment as military attache. He had his duties to learn in this capacity. He had to polish up his French and take lessons in conversation and composition, and learn what he could about the French military establishment and procedure. And he had to make ready for a long residence abroad.

To him, too, preoccupation was an opiate for suffering. Ambition and pride were resuming their interrupted sway. So long as he was busy he counted Persis as one of the tragedies of his past, and his love of her as a thing lived down and sealed in the archives of his heart.

But when he had an hour of leisure or of sleeplessness, she came back to him like a ghost with eery beauty and uncanny charm. He found her in nearly every newspaper, too. The announcement of her engagement brought forth a shower of portraits. There were articles about the alliance between the two families of Enslee and Cabot, about the bride's style of beauty, her recipes for beauty, silly accounts of interviews she never gave, beauty secrets she never used, exercises she never took, opinions on matters on which she had never thought. She was caught by camera-bogies on every shopping expedition, at the steeplechases, at the weddings of other people--everywhere. There were moving pictures of her; pictures of her in her babyhood, her girlhood, in old-fashioned costumes and poses. Women began to copy her hats, her coiffures, her costumes. An alert merchant with a large amount of an unsalable material on hand named it "Persis pink," and women fought for it. It became a household word, or, its subst.i.tute nowadays, a newspaper word.

Forbes was dumfounded at the publicity of Persis. He was tempted to believe that she had gone mad and hired a press-agent. But a woman who marries a rich enough man needs no booming to-day. The whisper of her engagement starts the avalanche. She becomes as public as a queen or a politician or a criminal.

The incessant encounter with Persis' beauty in every newspaper, morning and evening and Sunday, and in the ill.u.s.trated weeklies, kept Forbes'

wound open. He could not escape her. It was like being a prisoner at a window where she was always pa.s.sing. She smiled at him everywhere, and always with the shadow of the Enslee name imminent above her.

On the morning of the day he sailed, as he held his newspaper between his coffee and his cigar, certain head-lines leaped up and shouted at him from the top of a column with a roar as of apocalyptic trumpets. He hastened to his room to be alone while he read the chronicle of what was already past.

MISS PERSIS CABOT WEDS WM. ENSLEE

HEAD OF THE FAMOUS HOUSE MARRIED AT ST. THOMAS'S YESTERDAY AFTERNOON

Reception at Bride's Home

Earl and Countess of Kelvedon among Distinguished Guests.

Church a Ma.s.s of Bloom.

The marriage of William Enslee, the present head of the great dynasty of Enslee, and Miss Persis Cabot, the famous beauty, daughter of an equally distinguished family, was celebrated at 4:30 yesterday afternoon in St. Thomas's Church, Fifty-third Street and Fifth Avenue. This was the largest and most brilliant wedding of the season.

The chancel of the church was banked with rambler roses and white daisies, against a background of camellia-trees and towering palms, and the way to the altar was marked with bay and orange trees. The altar was a ma.s.s of bridal roses under an immense trellis of trailing smilax.

While the guests were arriving a recital was given by an orchestra, which played several selections at the bride's request, including the "Evening Star" from "Tannhauser," the prelude to "Lohengrin,"

the gavotte from "Mignon," and Simonetti's "Madrigale."

The ushers who seated the guests included the bride's brother, LeGrand Cabot, Murray Ten Eyck, Robert Gammell Fielding, and Ives Erskine.

The full vested-choir service was used for the ceremony, and Barnby's "O Perfect Love" was played as the processional. The bride walked down the nave with her father, who gave her in marriage, being preceded by the ushers, bridesmaids, matron, maid of honor, and flower-bearers. The bride wore a robe of heavy white satin, the skirt being draped with long motifs of old family lace and finished with a square train, which was edged with cl.u.s.ters of orange blossoms. The bodice was cut low and square in front, of lace and chiffon, with a deep collar of rose point lace of square and distinctive cut at the back. Her tulle veil was arranged about her head in cap effect, held by a coronet of orange blossoms. Her only ornament was a superb necklace of diamonds, the gift of the bridegroom.

She carried a cl.u.s.ter bouquet of white orchids, an ivory prayer-book that was also carried by her mother at her wedding, and a Valenciennes handkerchief.

The Countess of Kelvedon, the bride's sister, was matron of honor.

She wore a costume of soft white charmeuse, with an overskirt drapery effect of green chiffon, almost as deep in color as jade-green, and the upper part of her gown was a combination of satin and white chiffon, with a V opening at the neck. Her round leghorn hat was encircled with jade-green satin, and topped at the side with bows of green ribbon and pink roses. Her only ornament was a solitaire diamond suspended on an invisible platinum chain, and she carried a bouquet of Mme. Chatenay roses.

Her two little children were the flower-bearers, the tiny Honorable Paul Hadham and the exquisite little Lady Maude Hadham.

The four bridesmaids, the Misses Winifred Mather, Emma Gay, Lois Twombly, and Frances Iselin, also wore gowns that were a charming combination of white and green. Wide panels of green chiffon fell from the back of the shoulders to the hem of the ankle-length skirts of charmeuse, which disclosed white slippers with large rhinestone buckles. The green chiffon crossed the shoulders in fichu effect, and the elbow-length sleeves were edged with bands of green. Their leghorn hats of brown straw were trimmed with green satin and white chiffon, and faced with black velvet, with upright bows of green at the side. They each carried bouquets of roses, sweet-peas, and field-daisies, tied with pink satin streamers, and their ornaments were locket watches, the gift of the bride.

The ceremony was performed by the rector of the church, a.s.sisted by....

Twenty-five hundred invitations were sent out for the wedding. The church was quite full, and the residence of the bride's parents, where the wedding reception was held, was crowded to its utmost.

Mr. and Mrs. Enslee received congratulations in the Cabot drawing-room. A collation was served in the....

Some of the wedding-gifts were shown in rooms on the third floor.

They were....

After the reception Mr. and Mrs. Enslee will leave almost immediately for a honeymoon cruise on Mr. Enslee's yacht. They will tour Europe later.

Among those invited to the wedding were....

The paper dropped from Forbes' hand. The irrevocable was accomplished.

She was Enslee's, body and soul and name.

CHAPTER L

Forbes had not been invited to Persis' wedding. She had debated the matter feverishly and resolved that it was the lesser slight to leave him out of the twenty-five hundred who received the double-enveloped engravings. There was a certain distinction in being omitted, and she knew that he could not account it an oversight. She had been tempted to write him a letter. She scrawled off a dozen and tore them up in turn.