The Red Book Magazine/Volume 41/Number 1/Here Comes the Bridegroom

by Booth Tarkington

And now Mr. Tarkington invites you to attend the wedding of Muriel and Renfrew, the two most delightful young people in his whole gallery of youth. This story reveals the great novelist at his literary best—a best that has twice won for him the famous Pulitzer Prize and put him on every list of the ten greatest living Americans, and in all lists of the country's most distinguished citizens.

 

Here comes the Bridegroom

By
Booth Tarkington

Illustrated by
Arthur William Brown

EARLY on a warm and perfumed June morning made for brides and birds, the lark's first caroling to the new sun (or it may have been an early rising Ford) awakened young Renfrew Mears for the last time from slumber in the house of his parents; for he was to be a bridegroom at noon that day. His waking thoughts were of his Best Man, about whom Renfrew had a definite anxiety, well founded upon the Best Man's having insisted (with the ring in his pocket) upon hiring a taxicab for a trip to Beloochistan and the Italian Lakes, after the bachelor dinner the preceding evening.

Across the street, Miss Muriel Elliott was awakened by the same lark, if lark it were. At noon she was to be Miss no more forever; and her first thoughts were filial, being of her dear old father. Yet they were not wholly tender. Mr. Elliott, at the wedding rehearsal, the afternoon before, had missed his cue for giving her away and had stood looking up at the Gothic beams of the church, motionless in a bland daydream. “If he does it today,” thought Muriel, “Ill throw something at him, right there!”

The bridegroom's mother awoke with the thought of a small medicine chest which the bride had promised to keep always at hand for the preservation of Renfrew's health. Mustard plasters had been overlooked by some inexplicable oversight and must be added to the chest before the ceremony.

The bride's mother awoke to a nervous certainty that she had forgotten something she had meant to tell the caterer: but she couldn't think what it was.

The bridegroom's father awoke thinking how impossible it was to believe that this was his boy's wedding-day; the time was so short since his own wedding-day. (But he forgot to mention his thought to his wife. After all, the time had been long enough for him to acquire the habit of forgetting to mention such thoughts to her.)

The bride's father awoke to thoughts so sentimental that presently he found his eyes in danger of becoming a little watery; but he brightened up as he shaved, realizing that all the fuss would be over tomorrow and the house could quiet down again. Besides, Renfrew was a fine, steady young man, of the most amiable disposition in the world. It wasn't like seeing your daughter marry somebody you didn't know anything about, as so many daughters do!

TWO other awakenings, one in each of the well-shaded and substantial houses, may be mentioned: that of Miss Daisy Mears, nine-year-old sister of the bridegroom, and that of Master Robert Elliott, similar in age, the fat little brother of the bride. These two were to march together up the aisle, following the bride and her father; they were to carry sweet flowers with them, and were to look pure and dignified—a difficult matter. Robert awoke thinking of cake icings he had seen in sculpturesque preparation and had secretly tested, wielding a heavy forefinger to the damage of the sculpture. But Daisy awoke to build fairy pictures in her mind's eye; pictures in which the bride was nowhere, obliterated by a magnificent flower-bearing personage much like a stately Queen of Sheba lately prevalent in a movie Daisy had attended. And at ten o'clock her conception of this personage, exquisitely curled, made an appearance in the front yard, to permit public admiration of pomp in pink chiffon, white silk stockings and bright little buckled black pumps. The public, however, consisted principally of a small next-door neighbor, little Elsie Threamer, who came to the hedge between the two lawns for conference.

“Why, my dear! Aren't you invited?” Daisy asked, in what she believed to be her mother's most fashionable manner.

“Of course I am,” Elsie replied, and her lovely, placid eyes showed her astonishment. (In the matter of personal beauty, if not of the present moment's high adornment, she had greatly the advantage of Daisy.) “Why, I told you yesterday Mamma said I could go to the wedding!”

“But my dear! Not like that?” the airy Daisy exclaimed. “Isn't that the very frock you wore to Lawrence Coy's party munce an' munce an' munce ago?”

“Well, what of it?” Elsie inquired, not unreasonably. She was charmingly and appropriately dressed for the purpose of attending a wedding. “I look all right, don't I?”

Daisy laughed with an increased airiness; for her fast approaching importance had gone to her head.

“Well, what if you do or what if you don't?” she said. “The main thing is, I got so much on my mind I hardly got time to notice!” And she plagiarized a desire she had several times heard on. the lips of her elders of late. “My goodness, but I do wish it was all over!”

“What for?” Elsie asked. “What for do you wish that? What'd be the good of getting up a wedding just to have it be over?”

“Oh, but my dear!” Daisy exclaimed with a gesture that carried aloft both of her small and expressive hands. “My dear! Just think of me!”

“What for?”

“What for? Why, my goodness! Just think of me marchin' up the church aisle with the whole town a-lookin' an' a-lookin' an' a-lookin' at me! Oh, my dear!”

“Well,” said Miss Threamer, reassuringly, “Robert Elliott's goin' to march with you, isn't he?”

“Isn't it terrable?” Daisy moaned. “Just think of me havin' to march with that ole fat thing!”

“What I meant,' her neighbor explained, “—I meant Robert'll be all dressed up an' everything, too. Of course when you march up the aisle the people on your side'll look at you, but the people on his side'll look at him.”

“Look at Robert, you mean?” The idea was evidently a new one to the mind of the bridegroom's sister, and after a momentary pause of incredulity, she made plain her conviction of its preposterousness. “Why, my goodness, Elsie Threamer, what would anybody look at Robert Elliott for, unless they wanted to get sick or somep'm?”

“They'll haf to, Daisy. On his side the aisle they'll haf to look at him, and on your side they'll haf to look at you. They can't help it.”

“My goodness! People can look where they want to, can't they?”

“Not in church,” Elsie insisted. “In church you haf to look where you got to. On Sunday don't you haf to look at the minister, or else at the families in front of you?”

“This isn't Sunday,' Daisy reminded her. “I only wish it was! If it was Sunday I wouldn't haf to march up that aisle with everybody in the whole world gogglin' at me. I guess you never did these things, Elsie, else you'd know more about it. I do wish it was over!”

“I bet Robert does, too,” her friend said, glancing across the street to where Master Elliott, noticeably betailored and haberdashed, had made his appearance in something of the driven manner of a person physically urged forth from a house. “I bet Robert wishes it worse'n you do, Daisy!”

“Robert? I just guess he doesn't! All he thinks about is how much he'll get to eat when we have the food afterward. He hasn't got everything on his mind like I have.” And Daisy added casually, as Robert slowly sauntered toward them across the street: “My, but I hate him!”

Robert paused at the gate. 'Wha' chu doin'?” he inquired critically. “Showin' off in your skimpy little ole pink suit?”

Excitement had already given Daisy a high color, but upon this uncalled-for insult, indignation deepened the tint. “Look here!” she exclaimed in a shrill voice. “Don't you dare to set one foot inside my father and mother's yard. I got disgrace enough already for one day to haf to march up that church aisle with you; I don't want everybody seein' me in your fat ole companies anywheres else!”

“My heavens!” Robert retorted hotly. “You don't think I want to march up that church aisle with you, do you?”

“You do,” said Daisy promptly.

“What!”

“Course you do! But I warn you right here, Mr. Robert Elliott, it's the last time you'll ever get the chance! Why, I wouldn't march up that church aisle with you again if they gave me a hunderd dollars!”

“I wouldn't march up it with you this time,” the ungallant Robert retorted, “not unless they took and made me!”

“I wouldn't do it again,” Daisy shouted, “—not if they said had to do it or either get burned to death!”

“And I wouldn't,' Robert informed her, also shouting, “I wouldn't if they were goin' to take and drown me!”

“They ought to!”

“Ought to what?”

“Ought to drown you!” Daisy explained, still shouting.

“Drown me?”

“Yes, they ought! They ought to drowned you long ago! They ought to drowned you when you were little, an' saved the money for all the food you ate ever since!”

But this was going too far. Robert advanced from the gate threateningly. “Look here!” he said. “You look here! You aren't goin' to be allowed to just run over everybody around here!”

'Don't you dare come near me!” Daisy warned him.

“Yes, I will, too! You think you're so big in your skimpy little ole' pink suit, LII—Ill take an' I'll—”

“What'll you do? I'd just like you to dare say what you're goin' to do so much!”

“I'll take that skimpy little ole pink suit an' bury it in a hole. I'll dig in the ground!” said Robert, still advancing. “I'll take that skimpy little ole pink suit—”

BUT Daisy lifted up the voice she used in emergencies: the whole volume of sound within her power. “Mamma!” she shrieked. “Mamma! Mom-muh!”

Then, as Master Elliott halted, greatly disconcerted, Mrs. Mears looked down from a window upstairs.

“Children! Children! What are you doing? Is that the way to behave on the wedding-day?”

Robert hastily turned back toward the gate, hoping to get out of sight before matters should go farther; but he was not to be spared.

Illustration: “I will,” he said with sudden decisiveness. “'I'll do it, Mother. I'll do that first, and then I'll put on my hat.”

“Mamma! Mamma!” Daisy cried appealingly, as if for protection; then she pointed at the retreating invader. “He said he was goin' to tear my new dress right off o' me an' dig a hole in the ground and bury it in it!”

“I did not!”

“You did! Didn't he, Elsie?”

“Yes, he did,” Elsie said promptly.

“Why, Robert!” Mrs. Mears exclaimed.

Robert could not defend himself; he could only continue a dogged flight, but he sent over his shoulder a threat in a husky whisper calculated just to reach his enemy without being heard in the higher reaches of the air. “You wait! I'll fix you!”

“Mom-muh!” Daisy screamed instantly. “He says he's goin' to fix me!”

“Robert!”

But Robert fled to his own yard and disappeared among shrubberies.

“Oh, Daisy!” Mrs. Mears exclaimed reproachfully. “What a to begin the wedding-day! Quarreling with the bride's brother! Come into the house.”

“I guess I better,” Daisy said, in parting explanation to Elsie. “I certainly got enough on my mind. You'll get to see me again when I march down the aisle, but heavens knows I don't hardly expect to live through it!” And with a deep sigh, she went into the house, then ascended the front stairs and opened the bridegroom's door.

Renfrew, in a dressing-gown, turned nervously from his mirror. “What's the matter, Daisy? What was all that rumpus in the front yard?”

“Robert Elliott,” she explained, simply. “I want to ask you a special favor, Renfrew.”

“You do? Then hurry and ask it, Daisy.”

“In the first place,” she said, “I don't want to march up the aisle with that horrable ole thing.”

“You don't?”

“No; as a special favor I want you to fix it so's I don't haf to.”

Renfrew looked distressed and in his nervousness disarranged his smoothed hair with a hand already tremulous in stage-fright. “We can't change anything now,” he said. “It can't be done. Everything's all settled, and such matters can't be altered at the last moment.”

“It isn't the last moment,” she said. “There's over more'n an hour yet, and if I haf to walk up the church aisle with that ole thing, the whole wedding'll be spoiled.”

Her manner was what is sometimes called intense, and had its effect upon her brother. At any other time, of course, he would have laughed at her; but he was every instant approaching the moment when he would make the first great public and ceremonial appearance of his life; and the consciousness of this approach was strongly upon him. In fact, the consciousness was growing stronger and more demoralizing with the passing of every second of the approach. Briefly, he was not quite himself, not entirely in command of his usual faculties. Few bridegrooms are.

“Spoiled?'” he repeated apprehensively 'Spoiled?' What do you mean, 'the whole wedding'll be spoiled,' Daisy?”

“It will,” she said with conviction. “The whole biznuss'll just be ruined if I haf to march up the aisle with that awful ole thing!”

“But why?” he asked. “Why, Daisy?”

“Because it just certainly will, Renfrew!” she stated emphatically

Her brother's forehead, usually of an unfurrowed surface now showed the corrugations of increasing nervousness. “I can't understand why you don't tell me why, Daisy?” And, his state of mind being what it was, he added: “Is there some reason you think it may be ruined you don't like to tell me because you think it might upset me?”

The question was unfortunate In reality, Daisy had no particular objection to “marching” with Robert: merely, she was excited, felt self-important, and wished to talk in an important manner, as of important things, with important people. Naturally, therefore, she replied in the affirmative. “Yes, that's exakly the way it is,” she said. “I guess if you had everything on your mind I got on my mind, you would get upset!”

He became instantly haggard. “Good gracious!” he exclaimed. “Has something gone wrong they don't want to tell me?”

“It isn't so much it has gone wrong,” she said, frowning. “It's more like it's liable to go wrong.”

“What is?”

“I mean the wedding,” she explained.

“But why, Daisy? My goodness! Why don't you tell me?”

Thus he pressed her in a manner of imploring, but with no enlightening result. since Daisy had nothing but the vaguest improvisation to offer him. “Well, there's reasons why I better not,” she said, at a hazard, and then, not to lose in impressiveness: “But you better look out, Renfrew: this whole wedding's liable to be just ruined!”

“Good gracious!”

“It is,” she insisted, without any idea of what she so darkly hinted. “I guess it can't be stopped now, anyway. and so you might as well—”

She paused, as her mother's summoning voice was heard another part of the house. “Daisy! How often must I call you? Daisy!”

“Well, I guess I haf to go see what she wants,” Daisy said in an annoyed tone, and turned to the door.

“But look here—”

“What, Renfrew?”

“What do you mean saying all this, and that I 'might just as well'? I 'might just as well' what?”

“Oh,” said Daisy, “I meant I expect it's prob'ly too late now, an' you might just as well give up.” Then, as her mother's voice continued to be heard, growing sharper with repetition, Daisy shouted, “Good heavens, Mamma, give me a minute, please!” and hastily departed, having done more to the bridegroom's nerves than she knew. He hurriedly finished dressing—too hurriedly, in fact—and went to seek her, intending to persuade her, or, if necessary, to force her to clear up her unbearably threatening mysteries. But she had left the house.

“Yes, I thought it better to send her on ahead,” his mother said. “Your Aunt Mattie preferred to walk to the church, and Daisy's in such an excited state I thought she'd better go with her. The walk may cool her down a little.”

“But Mother!” Renfrew exclaimed. “Why is she in an excited state? What is it you're keeping from me?”

“What?”

“She told me something was certain to go wrong. She said—”

“Who did, Renfrew?”

“Daisy did,” said Renfrew. “She told me—”

Mrs. Mears began to laugh. “Daisy told you?” she inquired. “Daisy informed you that something is 'certain to go wrong'?”

Illustration: “Your hat,” he said. “Take it! And look here—there's something we forgot. I'm supposed to fee the Bishop for you. We forgot all about arranging—”

“Yes. But she wouldn't tell me what it is. Mother, what is it you're keeping from me?”

Mrs. Mears looked at him with some commiseration. “I think it must be your waistcoat, dear.”

“What!” he cried, and his amazed stare at her took on wildness of his sudden fear that she was delirious. “You say you're keeping my waistcoat from me? Mother, aren't you well?”

“I think so,” she replied calmly. “I only mean that somebody seems to be keeping your waistcoat from you, since you are wearing one, and I always thought, especially with that type of coat—”

“Good heavens!” he cried, looking down at himself. “I forgot it! Why, what a terrible thing to do! Suppose I'd gone to the church like this!” And he rushed back to his room. Half a minute later he returned to his mother with the question: “Now will you tell me why Daisy is in such an excited state?”

“I think it must be the wedding, Renfrew. People who are going to be in a wedding do sometimes get a little excited.”

“Yes: that's just what I'm talking about, Mother. She said—”

“Yes,” she interrupted, “you told me, dear. Daisy said something was 'certain to go wrong.' Don't you think she's a little young to be a very good prophet?”

But the corrugations upon her son's fair brow only deepened; he was not in a condition to be easily reassured. “Mother, has something happened to Muriel, and you're all keeping it from me?”

“Renfrew! What do you mean?” said his mother.

“I believe I ought to go over there and see,” he said, and with both hands massaging his head, turned to the door.

“I believe it would be better if you'd go and brush your hair,” Mrs. Mears suggested soothingly. “You've ruined it.”

“What do I care for that,” he cried, “if anything's happened to Muriel? Mother, don't you think I'd better go over there?”

“No, I believe I wouldn't, Renfrew—especially as I don't think they'd let you see her.”

“What! They wouldn't? They wouldn't let me see her? They wouldn't even let me see her?”

“I think probably not,” said Mrs. Mears. “They're just about getting her dressed now, I imagine.”

“She's able to be dressed?” he demanded. “You think—”

“I think you'd better try to calm down a little, Renfrew. You're getting yourself all upset over nothing.”

“Over nothing!'” he repeated. “You call it 'nothing' to be going to be married in a few minutes and then have your own family keep something from you about the bride!”

“Renfrew!” his mother exclaimed. “Don't be so absurd. Muriel's perfectly all right.”

“But how do you know she is?”

“Because I do! The idea of your getting into such a nervous state merely because a nine-year-old child—”

“But she said—”

“Did she say anything about Muriel?”

“No, she didn't say it. But perhaps she meant—”

“Just what was it she said, Renfrew?”

Renfrew did further damage to his hair. “Let me think. She said—she said something was sure to go wrong at the wedding, but she wouldn't say what. And she said it was because she had to march up the aisle with little Robert. What do you think she meant, Mother?”

But at that, in spite of his visibly intense anxiety, Mrs. Mears burst into outright laughter. “Nothing!” she cried. “Daisy meant exactly nothing at all.”

“But people always mean something,” he protested

“Not at the age of nine, my dear. Daisy was only airing herself. She was pretending to be important.”

“But she told me—”

Mrs. Mears became serious. “Renfrew,” she said, “go brush your hair. It's almost time to start for the church.”

“Oh, murder!” he said. “Is it? Do you know where I put the hat I got for it?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I'll bring it to you if you'll brush your hair.”

“My hair?” he said. “My hair?”

“Yes, dear! Go and brush it and I'll bring your hat to you.”

“My hat?” he said. “You'll bring my hat?”

“Yes, dear. But first go and brush your hair.”

“I will,” he said with sudden decisiveness. “I'll do it, Mother. I'll do that first, and then I'll put on my hat.”

“I think I should if I were you,” she returned. “Brush your hair first and then put on your hat.”

“I will,” he assured her earnestly, as he went out of the room. “It's what I intended to do all along, Mother.”

“And you'd better hurry a little, dear.”

“I am.” he called back to her. “I'm already hurrying, Mother. I've been hurrying all morning.”

BUT in his own room, before his mirror, with his brushes in his hands, he stood facing his reflection and omitted to apply the brushes to his hair. That is to say, he faced his reflection, and his eyes seemed to look at it; yet he had no practical perception of it. It suggested nothing as to his hair or the use of the brushes,

“My goodness!” he murmured, and turning to the window nearest him, began to stare fixedly at Muriel's house across the street. Closed cars in a high state of polish stood at the curb; a gay awning, in spite of the fair day, gave shelter all the way between curb and front door; jars of flowers were hinted in the lower windows; small groups of people, mainly colored people, waited cheerily along the sidewalk: and everywhere an intimation of festival was in the air. Evidently this was a Wedding Day for somebody.

“My goodness!” Renfrew said again, with but faint realization that this Wedding Day was the day when he would wed his Muriel. What occupied his mind might be likened somewhat to the vague horror he had felt upon another nervous morning, a few years before, as he approached the moment when he had to deliver an “oration” in school. What he felt now was incomparably more upsetting, though alleviated by a kind of dreaminess that prevented it from being precisely sinister; and yet this day, so strange, seemed to contain nothing definite pertaining to his actually changing into a Married Man: it appeared to be concerned only with his enacting before a silently critical multitude, all fine clothes and glittering eyes, a role most imperfectly rehearsed, for which he felt himself, both by nature and inclination, absolutely unfitted.

For Renfrew was of a natively modest habit, and inclined to the apologetic attitude of mind; he was, as people say, a young man of a painfully shy and retiring disposition. Yet brides and brides' mothers, year in and year out, do take even such a young man into their own hands, and turn a dismaying multitudinous attention upon him, as a Leading Man of the supporting company while the Star comes down the aisle. And the unjust part of this is that the Star, who doesn't need it, is supplied with a veil, while the stricken Leading Man must make his Grand Entrance with pallid face all naked and undefended. Here is indeed a wrong that needs righting. Our country has great leagues and societies—new ones are formed hourly—for the reform of every wrong and right thing under heaven; and yet we have no organization (at least, no national one) with the animating purpose of placing the wedding-veil where it properly belongs. Renfrew might have felt better, and might more sensibly have conducted himself this morning, if he had known that he was to pass through the approaching crisis under a veil—preferably one of opaque material.

It is true that he did brush his hair, after turning back from the window to his mirror; but he subsequently tossed one of the brushes upon the bed and put the other in the right-hand pocket of his trousers. His wallet, full of money and railroad tickets, lay upon the dressing-table before him; and probably some half-impulse toward it accounts for this singular choice of a receptacle for a hair-brush.

HIS mother appeared at his door, a glistening silk hat in her hand. “Don't worry any more, dear,” she said, and came to give him the hat and to kiss him. “Your father and I are going to the church now; and your Best Man's waiting for you downstairs.”

“Charley?” Renfrew asked, in genuine surprise. “What on earth is he doing downstairs?”

“He's come to drive to the church with you.”

“But what for?”

“Because you and he arranged it that way, didn't you?”

“Did we?” said Renfrew. “Then perhaps that's why he's waiting for me.”

“I think, perhaps,” she agreed gently, and kissed him with more agitation than she let him see. “Good-by, dear. Be sure to hold your shoulders back and don't be nervous, Renfrew.”

“Nervous? Why, of course not!” he said vehemently. “I'm no more nervous than I would be if I were just sitting down to breakfast with you and Father and Daisy. I'm as calm as if I were just going to take an ordinary drive with old Charley Jones. I am as calm—I am as calm—why, Mother, I am as calm as—why, I'm absolutely calm!”

“Yes, dear,” she said; and, her husband's voice being heard in a reiterated appeal from downstairs, she kissed Renfrew once more and left him. He stood looking earnestly at his hat for some moments, then placed it, back forward, upon his head, and descended to Charley Jones in the library.

“Charley,” he proclaimed, to that rather pallid, but glossily massaged and manicured Best Man, “Charley, I am as calm as—as stone! I am absolutely as calm as a stone statue!”

“I'm not,” Mr. Jones said ruefully. “I'd like to know what was in that salad last night. I think I ate too many hors-dœuvres, too. I'm not calm at all.”

“But I am, Charley,” the bridegroom assured him. “I am as calm—why, I'm as calm—as calm—as calm—”

“We better be getting into that car,” Charley reminded him. “You can tell me how calm you are all the way to the church.”

RENFREW seemed to wish to take advantage of this permission. “I am.” he said, when they were seated in the car. “I am, Charley.”

“You are what?”

“Calm,” said Renfrew. “I am as calm—well, I never felt any calmer than I do now since the day I was born.”

“How calm were you then?” the Best Man inquired.

“When?”

“The day you were born.”

“Why, perfectly,” said Renfrew. “Perfectly.”

“That's good,” said Mr. Jones. “I was afraid you might have been a little upset, or something.”

“No, no,” the bridegroom protested. “I practically never get upset, Charley. There's only one thing disturbs me.”

“What's that?”

“The ring. I'm disturbed about the ring, Charley.”

“You are? Here it is, perfectly safe.”

He exhibited it reassuringly. “What disturbs you about it?”

“I'm afraid you might drop it.”

“All right,” said the Best Man. “I'll put it back in my pocket.” And he did.

“No, no! I mean I'm afraid you might drop it when you hand it to me. Suppose you did, Charley. Suppose you did drop it and it lit on its side and began to roll, and went on rolling. You know, yourself, how any round piece of metal will roll, sometimes, when it lights on its side.”

“Yes, I do,” his friend assented warmly. “Many's the round piece of metal that's rolled far, far away from me, no matter which side it lit on!”

“Well, suppose,” Renfrew continued, “suppose when you're handing me the ring, you happen to drop it.”

“But I wont. What on earth would I drop it for?”

“I don't say you will,” said Renfrew, “but you might. Now, suppose you do, and suppose the ring lights on its side and starts rolling—”

“Then I'll run after it,” Charley interrupted. “I'll dart after it like a flash!”

“But what on earth will I do while you're running after it?”

“You just stand still with Muriel and the Bishop,” said Charley. “You stay and try to quiet them while I'm running after the ring.”

“But suppose it rolls all the way down among the pews and under people's feet and—"

“It wont,” Charley assured him earnestly. “I'll run after it till I get right alongside of it, and then if it tries to get into somebody's pew, I'll jump way up in the air like a tiger and I'll come down on it and absolutely crush it under me. 'There, you fat rascal!' I'll say. 'Just one more roll from you, and I'll throttle you as I would a varmint!'”

“Oh, my!” Renfrew said, and looked upon him pallidly. “You're not taking this thing seriously.”

“You accuse me?” Charley asked reproachfully. “When I'm doing my best to show you I know exactly how to act if that mean old ring tries to get away from us?”

“Can't you put your mind on it?” Renfrew urged him. “I'm seriously trying to get you to think what we could do if you dropped the ring.”

“Quit your worrying. I'm not going to drop it.

“Well, then,” said Renfrew promptly, “what would I do if right in the middle of the ceremony I had to sneeze?”

“You wouldn't. It isn't done.”

“But suppose I had to.”

“Oh, if you had to,” said Charley, “then you would. Yes, I didn't realize.”

“But it'd be just horrible!”

“You're right. It would!”

THE Best Man spoke unsympathetically, and Renfrew's expression became the more distressed. “But what would I do?” he asked imploringly. “What would I do if I did?”

“If you sneezed? It's customary,” said Charley, “—that is, it's customary at weddings for the bridegroom to make some little demonstration if he sneezes. I'm mighty glad you've consulted me about this, Renfrew, because I like my grooms to be a credit to me, and without instructions you might have done the wrong thing. Will you promise to remember what I'm going to tell you, in case you sneeze at the altar?”

“I will,” said Renfrew anxiously. “I will, Charley.”

“In case you sneeze,” Mr. Jones began his instructions, “you must turn laughingly to the congregation and give them a saucy wave of your handkerchief. Then you tap the Bishop three times on his chasuble and say, 'How's that for a sneeze, old cleric? Have you got a sneeze like that? If you think so enough to back it, I'll be glad to sneeze you at any time and place you'll name for five hundred dollars a side.'”

“Oh, murder!” Renfrew groaned. “You're just wasting my time with nonsense!”

“Well, I can't waste any more of it,” Mr. Jones informed him cheerfully, as the car stopped. “We're here.”

“We're where?”

“At the church,” said the Best Man. “Your time's come, Gerald Castleton.”

“Oh, murder!” the bridegroom groaned again, and followed his friend through an open doorway at the rear of the church to a vacant room behind the altar. There Renfrew immediately began to pace up and down, while the Best Man went to a door leading into the body of the church and opened it just far enough to permit him to peer through a crack. “Your ushers are still doing their duty by families and friends,” he told Renfrew

“See here,” Renfrew said in a desperate tone, “I don't know if I know all that by heart. I don't know if I know what to say!”

“What to say when?”

“At the altar.”

“Then you might improvise something,” Mr. Jones suggested brightly. “When the Bishop says, 'Wilt thou, Renfrew, take this woman' and so forth, if you can't remember the lines, why, just come back at him with any witty little thing you may have in your head at the time.”

“Oh, heavens!” Renfrew moaned. “I told you—”

“Wait,” Mr. Jones interrupted. “I know something better than improvising, especially as you seem afraid to depend on the inspiration of the moment, and this would be mighty appropriate too.”

“What would?”

“What I'm going to tell you,” Mr. Jones replied. “When the Bishop puts it up to you if you will take this woman or not, just you look up at the rafters in a resigned way and say: 'It is a far, far better thing that I do now, than I have ever done. It is a far, far nobler end that I am making now than I had any right to expect. It is a far, far braver thing that I do now than any of my friends ever thought—'”

“Oh, murder!” the pacing Renfrew groaned once more. “You can't put your mind on it!”

“Listen!” the Best Man said, his ear to the crack in the door. “It's the overture.”

THE air became tremulous with vibration from the profound basses of the great organ pipes, and Renfrew was like the air; he became tremulous too—and visibly.

“Oh, my goodness!” he said. “Is it time?”

“What 'time'?”

“Time for us to go out there.”

“No,” said Mr. Jones. “But it's time for you to quit that shaking. Do you want this whole town to think you're afraid to marry Muriel?”

“What?”

“It looks like it,” the Best Man said severely. “When a man steps out to marry a girl, and a large and intelligent audience observes that he's shaking like an invalid in a blizzard, the natural conclusion is that he's afraid of the bride.”

“What?” Renfrew cried. “Why, you know, yourself, I tried for months and months to persuade Muriel to be engaged to me. Everybody in town knows it. I'd have been an absolute wreck if she hadn't said she would!”

“I can't seem to make out the difference,” the heartless Mr. Jones responded. “Everyboy'll think you're one, anyway.”

“Everybody'll think I'm one what?”

“One wreck,” the Best Man explained, speaking distinctly. “They will if you parade in there shaking like that.”

“Shaking? Am I? So you could notice it?”

“Yes. Maybe not at a mile, but at a hundred yards, absolutely!”

“I think it must be the music,” said Renfrew. “I wish they didn't have to have it. It makes the cold chills go up and down your spine. I'll probably be all right when it stops, Charley.”

“It isn't going to stop,” said Charley. “Not till after you're married.”

“Not till when?”

“When that music stops, you'll be on your way to the subsequent festivities at your father-in-law's, so you might as well get used to it.”

“At my father-in-law's?” Renfrew repeated huskily. “At my father-in-law's?”

“Yes,” said Charley. “Name of Elliott. Nice old man, but got an eccentric daughter.”

“You charge Muriel with being eccentric?”

“Well, look who she's marrying!”

Renfrew bent upon him a searching though haggard stare. “Charley,” he said piteously, “I believe you're joking.”

BUT Charley had turned again to the crack in the door, and he made a warning gesture. “Steady now!” he whispered. “Brace up! Try to be a man! Get ready!”

The voluminous and chanting voices of the organ began to hint the change to a theme new and startling to those most nearly concerned, yet old and familiar to everyone; the beating harmonies of the chords conveyed the warning that an ancient melody was about to thrill out from among them; that most articulate of melodies; and Renfrew's breathing was suspended, for the time being. When he heard “Here Comes the Bride,” he was far less articulate than the melody, but uttered sounds.

“Quit that gulping and come on!” the Best Man said in a harsh, low voice. “You've got to!”

“Oh, murder!” Renfrew gasped, his last vocal exclamation as a bachelor; and by the imperious direction of his subconsciousness he took his place at his Best Man's side. Charley gently opened the door, and the two walked slowly out into full view of five hundred decorous people. To Renfrew, the faces of the five hundred seemed to beat upon him like a suffocating wave; his head felt inaccurately seated upon his shoulders, and all his limbs preëminently detachable. He had no confidence that he would reach the altar; yet his untrustworthy legs, startlingly limpid at the knees, did somehow continue to make progress thither—at least as far as the foot of the aisle where the bride was to debouch. There, automatically, he halted, as in the rehearsal, and waited, finding Charley of no help at all in this crisis, and very poor company.

RENFREW had consciousness of no individual eye in all the ocean of eyes that seemed to beat upon him; the whole world had become eyes that searched him and thought inscrutable thoughts about him. At the precise focus of the searchlight eye of the universe he stood helpless, exposed to the vast intolerable glare. Yet, as a matter of fact, not a person in the church was looking at him just then, not even his own father or his own mother, who were within a yard of him, if he had known it. The bride, in all her loveliness and attended by an interesting procession, was more than halfway down the aisle.

The bridegroom had no realization of her as his ladylove, his Muriel, whom he hoped to marry, when she appeared (unexpectedly) at his side and gently took his arm. His perception of her was as of a highly decorated and elaborate white Bundle, of some odd sort, strangely claiming him, strangely moving beside him as if permanently, and impelling him strangely to move toward the Bishop. This latter was a dreadful figure with a dreadful composure, and out of the figure and the composure there presently came unintelligible sounds faintly resembling passages in the English language.

Then out of Renfrew's own mouth, upon some unrecognizable prompting, a little later, came automatic faint murmurs, he knew not how or why; and he heard himself meaninglessly muttering, “I, Renfrew, take thee, Muriel,” swallowing dryly but heavily the while. And then came the ring into his hands, placed there demurely and without any dropping by a black coat-sleeve and a white cuff that emerged from an unknown region, gave him the ring and withdrew magically.

The Bishop took the ring, gave it back to him, and Renfrew turned to place it upon a finger of the pretty little hand projecting from the decorated Bundle (with its strangely persistent air of permanency) beside him. Beyond the Bundle, at a little distance, he saw two solemn children laden with beautiful flowers, and a definite anxiety penetrated his numbed intelligence. Daisy had predicted catastrophe to follow her marching down the aisle with Robert. Evidently and inevitably she had marched down the aisle with him: Where was the catastrophe? When would it begin? What would be its nature? Robert stood flushed and solemn; and Daisy, beside him, had a sweet if superior aspect; naught appeared amiss between them.

COMPREHENDING this much, the bridegroom vaguely caught a drift of words from the Bishop, who had just said something apparently indefinite about “Man and Wife.” Renfrew's mind did not go so far as to take in these words as important, or as bearing upon himself, but he knew a slight relief as he heard them, because the tone in which they were pronounced seemed to indicate that things were drawing perceptibly toward a conclusion. This exposure to the universal eye would not continue forever. Catastrophe was at least postponed until they should be beyond sanctuary.

He had no more than grasped this than the white Bundle was conducting him up the aisle, though it dexterously seemed to be conducted by him. He had the feeling that something important was lacking. He had come to the church to get married, and nothing much seemed to have been done about that; he was no more married than he had always been. Besides, he was having serious trouble with his face. He knew that his face ought to express pride and joy, and at the same time dignity; but he was unable to believe that it did actually express these things. Moreover, his efforts to force it to express them seemed to have had an unfortunate effect upon his features, which had slipped out of his control and were acting independently, each for itself, apparently in the spirit of sauve qui peut!

BUT hope and sunshine suddenly came once more into his staggered life; at the church door the light of open noonday filtered through a brave awning, and beyond the awning waited a haven and shelter, a closed car. This closed car, so beneficent in its offers of privacy, he looked upon as some terrorized Hermit Crab might look upon the home shell of which it had been deprived; and it were not going far wrong to say that Renfrew, beneath the awning, fairly scuttled to the car, the persistent white Bundle always accompanying him. By an effort of will, and with genuine presence of mind, he put the Bundle into the car before he got in himself.

Then miraculously appeared the Best Man at the open window of the car, offering Renfrew's hat.

“Your hat,” he said, as Renfrew gave him a stare containing only a wan relief and no human comprehension at all. “Take it!”

Renfrew feebly took it.

“And look here,” the Best Man added hurriedly, in a lowered voice; “—there's something we forgot. I'm supposed to fee the Bishop for you, and I ought to do it now, I guess, while he's taking off his vestments in that little room back there, because I leave town at three myself. We forgot all about arranging—”

“No,” Renfrew interrupted, “I didn't forget it. I've got it all arranged. You take my pocketbook, and in the back flap you'll find an envelope with the Bishop's name on it and a hundred-dollar bill in it. You give that to the Bishop, and bring the pocketbook up to the house with you. Be careful of it, Charley: it's got all my money for the trip in it, and all the railroad tickets and everything. Don't lose it, Charley.”

“I wont,” said Charley. “Are you still as calm as you were, Renfrew?”

“Absolutely. I've been calm every minute of the whole thing. I am as calm as—”

“Well, then,” Mr. Jones suggested, “perhaps you'd better turn over that pocketbook to me.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Renfrew, and having felt in his pocket, hastily placed in the Best Man's hands a small hair-brush, one of a pair, and of elegant design. “There, Charley,” he said with finality, and addressed the chauffeur: “For goodness' sake, why don't you get started? Everybody's looking!” The chauffeur was obedient; the car glided rapidly out of hearing, and the Best Man was left staring glassily at the hair-brush and deciding to avoid the Bishop until somewhat later in the day.

“You are as calm,” said the Best Man, staring at the shining back of the bridegroom's car, “you are as calm—as calm—well, you'll probably get a little calmer after Muriel's had you in training for a year or so!”

But Renfrew was already calmer. He had suddenly discovered that the persistent white Bundle was the Bride, and that the Bride was Muriel!