A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus Part 8

'What was I doing, then?'

'You were staring at me.'

'Oh, you saw that, did you?'

'I felt it.'

'Well, I was. But I was praying also.'

'Were you, Frank?'

'When I saw you kneeling there, so sweet and pure and good, I seemed to realise how you had been given into my keeping for life, and I prayed with all my heart that if I should ever injure you in thought, or word, or deed, I might drop dead now before I had time to do it.'

'O Frank, what a dreadful prayer!'

'But I felt it and I wished it, and I could not help it. My own darling, there you are just a living angel, the gentlest, most sensitive, and beautiful living creature that walks the earth, and please G.o.d I shall keep you so, and ever higher and higher if such a thing is possible, and if ever I say a word or do a deed that seems to lower you, then remind me of this moment, and send me back to try to live up to our highest ideal again. And I for my part will try to improve myself and to live up to you, and to bridge more and more the gap that is between us, that I may feel myself not altogether unworthy of our love. And so we shall act and re-act upon each other, ever growing better and wiser, and dating what is best and brightest in our minds and souls from the day that we were married.

And that's MY idea of a marriage-service, and here endeth the first lesson, and the windows are blurred with rain, and hang the coachman, and it's hard lines if a man may not kiss his own wife--you blessing!'

A broad-brimmed hat with a curling feather is not a good shape for driving with an ardent young bridegroom in a discreetly rain-blurred carriage. Frank demonstrated the fact, and it took them all the way to the Langham to get those pins driven home again. And then after an abnormal meal, which was either a very late breakfast or a very early lunch, they drove on to Victoria Station, from which they were to start for Brighton. Jack Selby and the two regimental fizzers, who had secured immortality for the young couple, if the deep and constant drinking of healths could have done it, had provided themselves with packages of rice, old slippers, and other time- honoured missiles. On a hint from Maude, however, that she would prefer a quiet departure, Frank coaxed the three back into the luncheon-room with a perfectly guileless face, and then locking the door on the outside, handed the key and a half-sovereign to the head- waiter, with instructions to release the prisoners when the carriage had gone--an incident which in itself would cause the judicious observer to think that, given the opportunity, Mister Frank Crosse had it in him to go pretty far in life. And so, quietly and soberly, they rolled away upon their first journey--the journey which was the opening of that life's journey, the goal of which no man may see.

CHAPTER VII--KEEPING UP APPEARANCES

It was in the roomy dining-room of the Hotel Metropole at Brighton.

Maude and Frank were seated at the favourite small round table near the window, where they always lunched. Their immediate view was a snowy-white tablecloth with a s.h.i.+ning centre dish of foppish little cutlets, each with a wisp of ornamental paper, and a surrounding bank of mashed potatoes. Beyond, from the very base of the window, as it seemed, there stretched the huge expanse of the deep blue sea, its soothing ma.s.s of colour broken only by a few white leaning sails upon the furthest horizon. Along the sky-line the white clouds lay in carelessly piled c.u.muli, like snow thrown up from a clearing. It was restful and beautiful, that distant view, but just at the moment it was the near one which interested them most. Though they lose from this moment onwards the sympathy of every sentimental reader, the truth must be told that they were thoroughly enjoying their lunch.

With the wonderful adaptability of women--a hereditary faculty, which depends upon the fact that from the beginning of time the s.e.x has been continually employed in making the best of situations which were not of their own choosing--Maude carried off her new character easily and gracefully. In her trim blue serge dress and sailor hat, with the warm tint of yesterday's sun upon her cheeks, she was the very picture of happy and healthy womanhood. Frank was also in a blue serge boating-suit, which was appropriate enough, for they spent most of their time upon the water, as a glance at his hands would tell.

Their conversation was unhappily upon a very much lower plane than when we overheard them last.

'I've got such an appet.i.te!'

'So have I, Frank.'

'Capital. Have another cutlet.'

'Thank you, dear.'

'Potatoes?'

'Please.'

'I always thought that people on their honeymoon lived on love.'

'Yes, isn't it dreadful, Frank? We must be so material.'

'Good old mother Nature! Cling on to her skirt and you never lose your way. One wants a healthy physical basis for a healthy spiritual emotion. Might I trouble you for the pickles?'

'Are you happy, Frank?'

'Absolutely and completely.'

'Quite, QUITE sure?'

'I never was quite so sure of anything.'

'It makes me so happy to hear you say so.'

'And you?'

'O Frank, I am just floating upon golden clouds in a dream. But your poor hands! Oh, how they must pain you!'

'Not a bit.'

'It was that heavy oar.'

'I get no practice at rowing. There is no place to row in at Woking, unless one used the ca.n.a.l. But it was worth a blister or two. By Jove, wasn't it splendid, coming back in the moonlight with that silver lane flickering on the water in front of us? We were so completely alone. We might have been up in the interstellar s.p.a.ces, you and I, travelling from Sirius to Arcturus in one of those profound gulfs of the void which Hardy talks about. It was overpowering.'

'I can never forget it.'

'We'll go again to-night.'

'But the blisters!'

'Hang the blisters! And we'll take some bait with us and try to catch something.'

'What fun!'

'And we'll drive to Rottingdean this afternoon, if you feel inclined.

Have this last cutlet, dear!'

'No, thank you.'

'Well, it seems a pity to waste it. Here goes! By the way, Maude, I must speak very severely to you. I can't if you look at me like that. But really, joking apart, you must be more careful before the waiters.'

'Why, dear?'

'Well, we have carried it off splendidly so far. No one has found us out yet, and no one will if we are reasonably careful. The fat waiter is convinced that we are veterans. But last night at dinner you very nearly gave the thing away.'

'Did I, Frank?'

'Don't look so sweetly penitent, you blessing. The fact is that you make a shocking bad conspirator. Now I have a kind of talent for that, as I have for every other sort of depravity, so it will be pretty safe in my hands. You are as straight as a line by nature, and you can't be crooked when you try.'

'But what did I say? Oh, I AM so sorry! I tried to be so careful.'

'Well, about the curry, you know. It was an error of judgment to ask if I took chutnee. And then . . . '