"Why not?" he demanded, with a smile, a smile calm, triumphant, masterful.

"Agnes!"... It was the sole pretext to which Mary could turn for a momentary relief.

The bridegroom faced about, and perceived Agnes, who stood closely watching the meeting between husband and wife. He made an excellent formal bow of the sort that one learns only abroad, and spoke quietly.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Lynch, but"--a smile of perfect happiness shone on his face--"you could hardly expect me to see any one but Mary under the circ.u.mstances. Could you?"

Aggie strove to rise to this emergency, and again took on her best manner, speaking rather coldly.

"Under what circ.u.mstances?" she inquired.

The young man exclaimed joyously.

"Why, we were married this morning."

Aggie accepted the news with fitting excitement.

"Goodness gracious! How perfectly lovely!"

The bridegroom regarded her with a face that was luminous of delight.

"You bet, it's lovely!" he declared with entire conviction. He turned to Mary, his face glowing with satisfaction.

"Mary," he said, "I have the honeymoon trip all fixed. The Mauretania sails at five in the morning, so we will----"

A cold voice struck suddenly through this rhapsodizing. It was that of the bride.

"Where is your father?" she asked, without any trace of emotion.

The bridegroom stopped short, and a deep blush spread itself over his boyish face. His tone was filled full to overflowing with compunction as he answered.

"Oh, Lord! I had forgotten all about Dad." He beamed on Mary with a smile half-ashamed, half-happy. "I'm awfully sorry," he said earnestly.

"I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll send Dad a wireless from the ship, then write him from Paris."

But the confident tone brought no response of agreement from Mary. On the contrary, her voice was, if anything, even colder as she replied to his suggestion. She spoke with an emphasis that brooked no evasion.

"What was your promise? I told you that I wouldn't go with you until you had brought your father to me, and he had wished us happiness." d.i.c.k placed his hands gently on his wife's shoulders and regarded her with a touch of indignation in his gaze.

"Mary," he said reproachfully, "you are not going to hold me to that promise?"

The answer was given with a decisiveness that admitted of no question, and there was a hardness in her face that emphasized the words.

"I am going to hold you to that promise, d.i.c.k."

For a few seconds, the young man stared at her with troubled eyes. Then he moved impatiently, and dropped his hands from her shoulders. But his usual cheery smile came again, and he shrugged resignedly.

"All right, Mrs. Gilder," he said, gaily. The sound of the name provoked him to new pleasure. "Sounds fine, doesn't it?" he demanded, with an uxorious air.

"Yes," Mary said, but there was no enthusiasm in her tone.

The husband went on speaking with no apparent heed of his wife's indifference.

"You pack up what things you need, girlie," he directed. "Just a few--because they sell clothes in Paris. And they are some cla.s.s, believe me! And meantime, I'll run down to Dad's office, and have him back here in half an hour. You will be all ready, won't you?"

Mary answered quickly, with a little catching of her breath, but still coldly.

"Yes, yes, I'll be ready. Go and bring your father."

"You bet I will," d.i.c.k cried heartily. He would have taken her in his arms again, but she evaded the caress. "What's the matter?" he demanded, plainly at a loss to understand this repulse.

"Nothing!" was the ambiguous answer.

"Just one!" d.i.c.k pleaded.

"No," the bride replied, and there was determination in the monosyllable.

It was evident that d.i.c.k perceived the futility of argument.

"For a married woman you certainly are shy," he replied, with a sly glance toward Aggie, who beamed back sympathy. "You'll excuse me, won't you, Miss Lynch,... Good-by, Mrs. Gilder." He made a formal bow to his wife. As he hurried to the door, he expressed again his admiration for the name. "Mrs. Gilder! Doesn't that sound immense?" And with that he was gone.

There was silence in the drawing-room until the two women heard the closing of the outer door of the apartment. Then, at last, Aggie relieved her pent-up emotions in a huge sigh that was near a groan.

"Oh Gawd!" she gasped. "The poor simp!"

CHAPTER XIII. THE ADVENT OF GRIGGS.

Later on, Garson, learning from the maid that d.i.c.k Gilder had left, returned, just as Mary was glancing over the release, with which General Hastings was to be compensated, along with the return of his letters, for his payment of ten thousand dollars to Miss Agnes Lynch.

"h.e.l.lo, Joe," Mary said graciously as the forger entered. Then she spoke crisply to Agnes. "And now you must get ready. You are to be at Harris's office with this doc.u.ment at four o'clock, and remember that you are to let the lawyer manage everything."

Aggie twisted her doll-like face into a grimace.

"It gets my angora that I'll have to miss Pa Gilder's being led like a lamb to the slaughter-house." And that was the nearest the little adventuress ever came to making a Biblical quotation.

"Anyhow," she protested, "I don't see the use of all this monkey business here. All I want is the coin." But she hurried obediently, nevertheless, to get ready for the start.

Garson regarded Mary quizzically.

"It's lucky for her that she met you," he said. "She's got no more brains than a gnat."

"And brains are mighty useful things, even in our business," Mary replied seriously; "particularly in our business."

"I should say they were," Garson agreed. "You have proved that."

Aggie came back, putting on her gloves, and c.o.c.king her small head very primly under the enormous hat that was garnished with costliest plumes.

It was thus that she consoled herself in a measure for the business of the occasion--in lieu of cracked ice from Tiffany's at one hundred and fifty a carat. Mary gave over the release, and Aggie, still grumbling, deposited it in her handbag.