第52章

Stella boldly described her mother's idea of a wedding--including the Archbishop, the twelve bridesmaids in green and gold, and the hundred guests at breakfast in Lord Loring's picture gallery.

Romayne's consternation literally deprived him, for the moment, of the power of speech.To say that he looked at Stella, as a prisoner in "the condemned cell" might have looked at the sheriff, announcing the morning of his execution, would be to do injustice to the prisoner.He receives _his_ shock without flinching; and, in proof of his composure, celebrates his wedding with the gallows by a breakfast which he will not live to digest.

"If you think as your mother does," Romayne began, as soon as he had recovered his self-possession, "no opinion of mine shall stand in the way--" He could get no further.His vivid imagination saw the Archbishop and the bridesmaids, heard the hundred guests and their dreadful speeches: his voice faltered, in spite of himself.

Stella eagerly relieved him."My darling, I don't think as my mother does," she interposed, tenderly."I am sorry to say we have very few sympathies in common.Marriages, as I think, ought to be celebrated as privately as possible--the near and dear relations present, and no one else.If there must be rejoicings and banquets, and hundreds of invitations, let them come when the wedded pair are at home after the honeymoon, beginning life in earnest.These are odd ideas for a woman to have--but they _are_my ideas, for all that."

Romayne's face brightened."How few women possess your fine sense and your delicacy of feeling!" he exclaimed "Surely your mother must give way, when she hears we are both of one mind about our marriage."Stella knew her mother too well to share the opinion thus expressed.Mrs.Eyrecourt's capacity for holding to her own little ideas, and for persisting (where her social interests were concerned) in trying to insinuate those ideas into the minds of other persons, was a capacity which no resistance, short of absolute brutality, could overcome.She was perfectly capable of worrying Romayne (as well as her daughter) to the utmost limits of human endurance, in the firm conviction that she was bound to convert all heretics, of their way of thinking, to the orthodox faith in the matter of weddings.Putting this view of the case with all possible delicacy, in speaking of her mother, Stella expressed herself plainly enough, nevertheless, to enlighten Romayne.

He made another suggestion."Can we marry privately," he said, "and tell Mrs.Eyrecourt of it afterward?"This essentially masculine solution of the difficulty was at once rejected.Stella was too good a daughter to suffer her mother to be treated with even the appearance of disrespect."Oh," she said, "think how mortified and distressed my mother would be! She _must_ be present at my marriage."An idea of a compromise occurred to Romayne."What do you say,"he proposed, "to arranging for the marriage privately--and then telling Mrs.Eyrecourt only a day or two beforehand, when it would be too late to send out invitations? If your mother would be disappointed--""She would be angry," Stella interposed.

"Very well--lay all the blame on me.Besides, there might be two other persons present, whom I am sure Mrs.Eyrecourt is always glad to meet.You don't object to Lord and Lady Loring?""Object? They are my dearest friends, as well as yours!""Any one else, Stella?"

"Any one, Lewis, whom _you_ like.

"Then I say--no one else.My own love, when may it be? My lawyers can get the settlements ready in a fortnight, or less.Will you say in a fortnight?"His arm was round her waist; his lips were touching her lovely neck.She was not a woman to take refuge in the commonplace coquetries of the sex."Yes," she said, softly, "if you wish it."She rose and withdrew herself from him."For my sake, we must not be here together any longer, Lewis." As she spoke, the music in the ballroom ceased.Stella ran out of the conservatory.

The first person she encountered, on returning to the reception-room, was Father Benwell.