The Price of Things | Page 8

had indulged in none of those visions of romantic bliss which girls were once supposed to spend their time in constructing. But she did expect something, and here was nothing--just nothing!
The day John had asked her to marry him he had not been much moved. He had put the question to her simply and calmly, and she had not dreamed of refusing him. It was obviously her duty, and it had always been her intention to marry well, if the chance came her way, and so leave a not too congenial home.
She had been to a few London balls with the maiden aunt, a personage of some prestige and character. But invitations do not flow to a penniless young woman from the country, nor do partners flock to be presented to strangers in those days, and Amaryllis had spent many humiliating hours as a wall-flower and had grown to hate balls. She was not expansive in herself and did not make friends easily, and pretty as she was, as a girl, luck did not come her way.
When she had said "Yes" in as matter-of-fact a voice as the proposal of marriage had been made to her, Sir John had replied: "You are a dear," and that had seemed to her a most ordinary remark. He had leaned over--they were climbing a steep pitch in search of a fugitive golf ball--and had taken her hand respectfully, and then he had kissed her forehead--or her ear--she forgot which--nothing which mattered much, or gave her any thrill!
"I hope I shall make you happy," he had added. "I am a dull sort of a fellow, but I will try."
Then they had talked of the usual things that they talked about, the most every-day,--and they had returned to the house, and by the evening every one knew of the engagement, and she was congratulated on all sides, and petted by the hostess, and she and John were left ostentatiously alone in a smaller drawing-room after dinner, and there was not a grain of excitement in the whole conventional thing!
There was always a shadow, too, in John's blue eyes. He was the most reserved creature in this world, she supposed. That might be all very well, but what was the good of being so reserved with the woman you liked well enough to make your wife, if it made you never able to get beyond talking on general subjects!
This she had asked herself many times and had determined to break down the reserve. But John never changed and he was always considerate and polite and perfectly at ease. He would talk quietly and with commonsense to whoever he was placed next, and very seldom a look of interest flickered in his eyes. Indeed, Amaryllis had never seen him really interested until he spoke of Ardayre--then his very voice altered.
He spoke of his home often to her during their engagement, and she grew to know that it was something sacred to him, and that the Family and its honour, and its traditions, meant more to him than any individual person could ever do.
She almost became jealous of it all.
Her trousseau was quite nice--the maiden aunt had seen to that. Her niece had done well and she did not grudge her pinchings.
Amaryllis felt triumphant as she walked up the aisle of St. George's, Hanover Square, on the arm of a scapegrace sailor uncle--she would not allow her stepfather to give her away.
Every one was so pleased about the wedding! An Ardayre married to an Ardayre! Good blood on both sides and everything suitable and rich and prosperous, and just as it should be! And there stood her handsome, stolid bridegroom, serenely calm--and the white flowers, and the Bishop--and her silver brocade train--and the pages, and the bridesmaids. Oh! yes, a wedding was a most agreeable thing!
And could she have penetrated into the thoughts of John Ardayre, this is the prayer she would have heard, as he knelt there beside her at the altar rails: "Oh, God, keep the axe from falling yet, give me a son."
The most curious emotions of excitement rose in her when they went off in the smart new automobile en route for that inevitable country house "lent by the bridegroom's uncle, the Earl de la Paule, for the first days of the honeymoon."
This particular mansion was on the river, only two hours' drive from her aunt's Charles Street door. Now that she was his wife, surely John would begin to make love to her, real love, kisses, claspings, and what not. For Elsie Goldmore had presumed upon their schoolgirl friendship and been quite explicate in these last days, and in any case Amaryllis was not a miss of the Victorian era. The feminine world has grown too unrefined in the expression of its private