"Are you hankering after Perry Miller yet?" demanded Emily fiercely.
"No, dear infant. And neither am I crazy about Teddy. After all, ours is only second-hand love on both sides, you know. Cold soup warmed over. Don't worry. I'll be good for him. I'll keep him up to the notch in everything much better than if I thought him a little lower than the angels. It doesn't do to think a man is perfection because HE naturally thinks so, too, and when he finds some one who agrees with him he is inclined to rest on his oars. It riles me up a bit when every one seems to think I'm so amazingly lucky to 'get' Teddy for a husband. Comes Aunt Ida Mitchell... 'You are getting a perfectly wonderful husband, Ilse'... comes Bridget Mooney from Stovepipe Town scrubbing the floor... 'Gosh but you're gettin' a swell man, Miss'... 'Sisters under their skins,' you perceive. Teddy is well enough... especially since he found out he isn't the only man in the world. He has learned sense somewhere. I'd like to know what girl taught it to him. Oh, there was one. He told me something about the affair... not much but enough. She used to snub him terribly... and then after she had led him on to think she cared she turned him down cold. Never even answered the letter in which he told her he loved her. I hate that girl, Emily... isn't it odd?"
"Don't hate her," said Emily, wearily. "Perhaps she didn't know what she was doing."
"I hate her for using Teddy like that. Though it did him heaps of good. Why do I hate her, Emily? Employ your renowned skill in psychological analysis and expound to me that mystery."
"You hate her... because... to borrow a certain crude expression we've often heard... you're 'taking her leavings.'"
"You demon! I suppose it's so. How ugly some things are when you ferret them out! I've been flattering myself that it was a noble hatred because she made Teddy suffer. After all, the Victorians were right in covering lots of things up. Ugly things should be hidden. Now, go home if go you must and I'll try to look like some one about to receive a blessing."
II
Lorne Halsey came with Teddy... the great Halsey whom Emily liked very much in spite of his gargoyleishness. A comical looking fellow with vital, mocking eyes, who seemed to look upon everything in general and Frederick Kent's wedding in particular as a huge joke. Somehow, this attitude made things a little easier for Emily. She was very brilliant and gay in the evenings they all spent together. She was terribly afraid of silence in Teddy's presence. "Never be silent with the person you love and distrust," Mr. Carpenter had said once. "Silence betrays."
Teddy was very friendly, but his gaze always omitted Emily. Once, when they all walked in the old, overgrown, willow-bordered lawn of the Burnley place, Ilse stumbled on the happy idea of pick-out your favourite star.
"Mine is Sirius. Lorne?"
"Antares of the Scorpion... the red star of the south," said Halsey.
"Bellatrix of Orion," said Emily quickly. She had never thought about Bellatrix before, but she dared not hesitate a moment before Teddy.
"I have no especial favourite... there is only one star I hate. Vega of the Lyre," said Teddy quietly. His voice was charged with a significance which instantly made every one uncomfortable though neither Halsey nor Ilse knew why. No more was said about stars. But Emily watched alone till they faded out one by one in the dawn.
III
Three nights before the wedding-day Blair Water and Derry Pond were much scandalized because Ilse Burnley had been seen driving with Perry Miller in his new run-about at some ungodly hour. Ilse coolly admitted it when Emily reproached her.
"Of course I did. I had had such a dull, bored evening with Teddy. We began it well with a quarrel over my blue Chow. Teddy said I cared more for it than I did for him. I said of course I did. It infuriated him, though he didn't believe it. Teddy, manlike, really believes I'm dying about him.
"'A dog that never chased a cat in its life,' he sneered.
"Then we both sulked the rest of the evening. He went home at eleven without kissing me. I resolved I'd do something foolish and beautiful for the last time, so I sneaked down the lane for a lovely, lonely walk down to the dunes. Perry came along in his car and I just changed my mind and went for a little moonlit spin with him. I wasn't married YET. Don't be after looking at me so. We only stayed out till one and we were really very good and proper. I only wondered once... just what would happen if I suddenly said, 'Perry, darling, YOU'RE the only man I've ever really cared a hang for. Why can't WE get married?' I wonder if when I'm eighty I'll wish I'd said it."
"You told me you had quite got over caring for Perry.'
"But did you believe me? Emily, thank God you're not a Burnley."
Emily reflected bitterly that it was not much better being a Murray. If it had not been for her Murray pride she would have gone to Teddy the night he called her... and she would have been tomorrow's bride... not Ilse.
To-morrow. It was to-morrow... the morrow when she would have to stand near Teddy and hear him vowing lifelong devotion to another woman. All was in readiness. A wedding-supper that pleased even Dr. Burnley, who had decreed that there should be "a good, old- fashioned wedding-supper... none of your modern dabs of this and that. The bride and groom mayn't want much maybe, but the rest of us still have stomachs. And this is the first wedding for years. We've been getting pretty much like heaven in one respect anyhow... neither marrying nor giving in marriage. I want a spread. And tell Laura for heaven's sake not to yowl at the wedding."
So Aunts Elizabeth and Laura saw to it that for the first time in twenty years the Burnley house had a thorough cleaning from top to bottom. Dr. Burnley thanked God forcibly several times that he would only have to go through this once, but nobody paid any attention to him. Elizabeth and Laura had new satin dresses made. It was such a long time since they had had any excuse for new satin dresses.
Aunt Elizabeth made the wedding-cakes and saw to the hams and chickens. Laura made creams and jellies and salads and Emily carried them over to the Burnley Place, wondering at times if she wouldn't soon wake up... before... before...
"I'll be glad when all this fuss is over," growled Cousin Jimmy. "Emily's working herself to death... look at the eyes of her!"
IV
"Stay with me to-night, Emily," entreated Ilse. "I swear I won't talk you to death and I won't cry either. Though I admit if I could just be snuffed out to-night like a candle I wouldn't mind. Jean Askew was Milly Hyslop's bridesmaid and she spent the night before her wedding with her and they both cried all night. Fancy such an orgy of tears. Milly cried because she was going to be married... and I suppose Jean must have been crying because she wasn't. Thank heaven, Emily, you and I were never the miauling kind. We'll be more likely to fight than cry, won't we? I wonder if Mrs. Kent will come to-morrow? I don't suppose so. Teddy says she never mentions his marriage. Though he says she seem oddly changed... gentler... calmer... more like other women. Emily, do you realize that by this time to-morrow I'll be Ilse Kent?"
Yes, Emily realized THAT.
They said nothing more. But two hours later when wakeful Emily had supposed the motionless Ilse was sound asleep Ilse suddenly sat up in bed and grabbed Emily's hand in the darkness.
"Emily... if one could only go to sleep unmarried... and wake up married... how nice it would be."