第10章

"I must feel sure of you, Pauline.Sometimes everything seems to be against me, and I even doubt you.And--that's when the temptations pull hardest.If we were married it'd all be different."Yes, it would be different.And he would be securely hers, with her mind at rest instead of harassed as it would be if she let him go so far away, free.And where was the harm in merely repeating before a preacher the promise that now bound them both?

She looked at him and he at her.

"You don't put any others before me, do you, dear?" he asked.

"No, Jack--no one.I belong to you."

"Come!" he pleaded, and they went down to the boat.She seemed to herself to be in a dream--in a trance.

As she walked beside him along the country road on the other shore a voice was ringing in her ears: "Don't! Don't! Ask Olivia's advice first!" But she walked on, her will suspended, substituted for it his will and her jealousy and her fears of his yielding to the urgings of his father and the blandishments of "that Cleveland girl." He said little but kept close to her, watching her narrowly, touching her tenderly now and then.

The Reverend Josiah Barker was waiting for them--an oily smirk on a face smooth save where a thin fringe of white whiskers dangled from his jaw-bone, ear to ear; fat, damp hands rubbing in anticipation of the large fee that was to repay him for celebrating the marriage and for keeping quiet about it afterward.At the proper place in the brief ceremony Dumont, with a sly smile at Pauline which she faintly returned, produced the ring--he had bought it at Saint X a week before and so had started a rumor that he and Caroline Sylvester were to be married in haste.He held Pauline's hand firmly as he put the ring on her finger--he was significantly cool and calm for his age and for the circumstances.She was trembling violently, was pale and wan.The ring burned into her flesh.

"Whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder," ended Barker, with pompous solemnity.

Dumont kissed her--her cheek was cold and at the touch of his lips she shuddered.

"Don't be afraid," he said in a low voice that was perfectly steady.

They went out and along the sunny road in silence."Whom God hath joined," the voice was now dinning into her ears.And she was saying to herself, "Has GOD joined us? If so, why do I feel as if I had committed a crime?" She looked guiltily at him--she felt no thrill of pride or love at the thought that he was her husband, she his wife.And into her mind poured all her father's condemnations of him, with a vague menacing fear riding the crest of the flood.

"You're sorry you've done it?" he said sullenly.

She did not answer.

"Well, it's done," he went on, "and it can't be undone.And I've got you, Polly, in spite of them.They might have known better than to try to keep me from getting what I wanted.Ialways did, and I always shall!"

She looked at him startled, then hastily looked away.Even more than his words and his tone, she disliked his eyes--gloating, triumphant.But not until she was years more experienced did she study that never-forgotten expression, study it as a whole--words, tone, look.Then, and not until then, did she know that she had instinctively shrunk because he had laid bare his base and all but loveless motive in marrying her.

"And," he added, "I'll force father to give me a big interest in the business very soon.Then--we'll announce it."Announce IT? Announce WHAT? "Why, I'm a married woman," she thought, and she stumbled and almost fell.The way danced before her eyes, all spotted with black.She was just able to walk aboard the boat and drop into a seat.

He sat beside her, took her hand and bent over it; as he kissed it a tear fell on it.He looked at her and she saw that his eyes were swimming.A sob surged into her throat, but she choked it back."Jack!" she murmured, and hid her face in her handkerchief.

When they looked each at the other both smiled--her foreboding had retreated to the background.She began to turn the ring round and round upon her finger.

"Mrs.John Dumont," she said."Doesn't it sound queer?" And she gazed dreamily away toward the ranges of hills between which the river danced and sparkled as it journeyed westward.When she again became conscious of her immediate surroundings--other than Dumont--she saw a deck-hand looking at her with a friendly grin.

Instantly she covered the ring with her hand and handkerchief.

"But I mustn't wear it," she said to Dumont.

"No--not on your finger." He laughed and drew from his pocket a slender gold chain."But you might wear it on this, round your neck.It'll help to remind you that you don't belong to yourself any more, but to me."She took the chain--she was coloring in a most becoming way--and hid it and the ring in her bosom.Then she drew off a narrow hoop of gold with a small setting and pushed it on his big little finger.

"And THAT, sir," she said, with a bewitching look, "may help you not to forget that YOU belong to me."She left the ferry in advance of him and faced Olivia just in time for them to go down together to the half-past twelve o'clock dinner.