The Custom of the Country (Romance Classic). Edith Wharton

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      “Yes; but WHY? It was all straight enough, if you come to that.”

      “It doesn’t matter … whether it was straight … or … not …” He interpolated a whistle which made her add: “What I mean is that out here in the East they don’t even like it if a girl’s been ENGAGED before.”

      This last strain on his credulity wrung a laugh from Moffatt. “Gee! How’d they expect her fair young life to pass? Playing ‘Holy City’ on the melodeon, and knitting tidies for church fairs?”

      “Girls are looked after here. It’s all different. Their mothers go round with them.”

      This increased her companion’s hilarity and he glanced about him with a pretense of compunction. “Excuse ME! I ought to have remembered. Where’s your chaperon, Miss Spragg?” He crooked his arm with mock ceremony. “Allow me to escort you to the bew-fay. You see I’m onto the New York style myself.”

      A sigh of discouragement escaped her. “Elmer—if you really believe I never wanted to act mean to you, don’t you act mean to me now!”

      “Act mean?” He grew serious again and moved nearer to her. “What is it you want, Undine? Why can’t you say it right out?”

      “What I told you. I don’t want Ralph Marvell—or any of them—to know anything. If any of his folks found out, they’d never let him marry me—never! And he wouldn’t want to: he’d be so horrified. And it would KILL me, Elmer—it would just kill me!”

      She pressed close to him, forgetful of her new reserves and repugnances, and impelled by the passionate absorbing desire to wring from him some definite pledge of safety.

      “Oh, Elmer, if you ever liked me, help me now, and I’ll help you if I get the chance!”

      He had recovered his coolness as hers forsook her, and stood his ground steadily, though her entreating hands, her glowing face, were near enough to have shaken less sturdy nerves.

      “That so, Puss? You just ask me to pass the sponge over Elmer Moffatt of Apex City? Cut the gentleman when we meet? That the size of it?”

      “Oh, Elmer, it’s my first chance—I can’t lose it!” she broke out, sobbing.

      “Nonsense, child! Of course you shan’t. Here, look up. Undine—why, I never saw you cry before. Don’t you be afraid of me—I ain’t going to interrupt the wedding march.” He began to whistle a bar of Lohengrin. “I only just want one little promise in return.”

      She threw a startled look at him and he added reassuringly: “Oh, don’t mistake me. I don’t want to butt into your set—not for social purposes, anyhow; but if ever it should come handy to know any of ‘em in a business way, would you fix it up for me—AFTER YOU’RE MARRIED?’”

      Their eyes met, and she remained silent for a tremulous moment or two; then she held out her hand. “Afterward—yes. I promise. And YOU promise, Elmer?”

      “Oh, to have and to hold!” he sang out, swinging about to follow her as she hurriedly began to retrace her steps.

      The March twilight had fallen, and the Stentorian facade was all aglow, when Undine regained its monumental threshold. She slipped through the marble vestibule and soared skyward in the mirror-lined lift, hardly conscious of the direction she was taking. What she wanted was solitude, and the time to put some order into her thoughts; and she hoped to steal into her room without meeting her mother. Through her thick veil the clusters of lights in the Spragg drawingroom dilated and flowed together in a yellow blur, from which, as she entered, a figure detached itself; and with a start of annoyance she saw Ralph Marvell rise from the perusal of the “fiction number” of a magazine which had replaced “The Hound of the Baskervilles” on the onyx table.

      “Yes; you told me not to come—and here I am.” He lifted her hand to his lips as his eyes tried to find hers through the veil.

      She drew back with a nervous gesture. “I told you I’d be awfully late.”

      “I know—trying on! And you’re horribly tired, and wishing with all your might I wasn’t here.”

      “I’m not so sure I’m not!” she rejoined, trying to hide her vexation in a smile.

      “What a tragic little voice! You really are done up. I couldn’t help dropping in for a minute; but of course if you say so I’ll be off.” She was removing her long gloves and he took her hands and drew her close. “Only take off your veil, and let me see you.”

      A quiver of resistance ran through her: he felt it and dropped her hands.

      “Please don’t tease. I never could bear it,” she stammered, drawing away.

      “Till tomorrow, then; that is, if the dressmakers permit.”

      She forced a laugh. “If I showed myself now you might not come back tomorrow. I look perfectly hideous—it was so hot and they kept me so long.”

      “All to make yourself more beautiful for a man who’s blind with your beauty already?”

      The words made her smile, and moving nearer she bent her head and stood still while he undid her veil. As he put it back their lips met, and his look of passionate tenderness was incense to her.

      But the next moment his expression passed from worship to concern. “Dear! Why, what’s the matter? You’ve been crying!”

      She put both hands to her hat in the instinctive effort to hide her face. His persistence was as irritating as her mother’s.

      “I told you it was frightfully hot—and all my things were horrid; and it made me so cross and nervous!” She turned to the looking-glass with a feint of smoothing her hair.

      Marvell laid his hand on her arm, “I can’t bear to see you so done up. Why can’t we be married tomorrow, and escape all these ridiculous preparations? I shall hate your fine clothes if they’re going to make you so miserable.”

      She dropped her hands, and swept about on him, her face lit up by a new idea. He was extraordinarily handsome and appealing, and her heart began to beat faster.

      “I hate it all too! I wish we COULD be married right away!”

      Marvell caught her to him joyously. “Dearest—dearest! Don’t, if you don’t mean it! The thought’s too glorious!”

      Undine lingered in his arms, not with any intent of tenderness, but as if too deeply lost in a new train of thought to be conscious of his hold.

      “I suppose most of the things COULD be got ready sooner—if I said they MUST,” she brooded, with a fixed gaze that travelled past him. “And the rest—why shouldn’t the rest be sent over to Europe after us? I want to go straight off with you, away from everything—ever so far away, where there’ll be nobody but you and me alone!” She had a flash of illumination which made her turn her lips to his.

      “Oh, my darling—my darling!” Marvell whispered.

      X

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