But Rex looked up instantly with a startled glance and recognized the two girls. There was a quick light of pleasure in his eyes, almost instantly followed by one of dismay. He frowned in a troubled way and dropped his glance to the pavement, saying slowly, "I thought Natalie went abroad. The last letter she wrote me, she said the whole family were going abroad."
Ah! Then they had been corresponding! Why had they stopped? Paul wondered. Had there been a quarrel, or was it just indifference? Had that anything to do with Rex's marriage?
But it was Stan who spoke next.
"Yes, they were going abroad, but Nat's dad got sick, and then something went wrong with the business and they couldn't go. Her dad's about well now, but the business is still on the blink, so Natalie stopped university and got a job. She's a secretary or typist or something with a publisher in the city."
"You don't mean it!" said Rex in a tone of consternation, almost as if it might have been his fault. "Why didn't anybody ever tell me?"
"Why, we all thought you knew it, of course, Rex," said Paul. "I don't know why we never mentioned it. I guess there's a whole lot more to that girl than we ever suspected," he added quite casually, as if she had just been any girl out of their past instead of the only one who in former days had seemed to be Rex's special companion whenever they were having good times together.
"Yes!" flashed back Rex sharply. "I always knew there was a lot to her. She was a peach. She was the real thing!"
He said it so earnestly that Paul could scarcely refrain from answering, "Then why in thunder, kid, did you ever mess your life up with the girl you've married?" But he walked on silently beside Rex, thinking it over and over until if there was anything at all in telepathy, Rex must have understood it, for there was a downcast droop about him that made Paul's heart ache for his brother.
In another minute the girls were upon them.
They had had time, of course, to realize who they were meeting and were on their guard. Paul remembered with relief that he had told Marcia yesterday about Rex's marriage. Marcia would likely have told Natalie, and maybe they wouldn't have to explain.
Then they heard Marcia's cheery voice.
"Well, if here aren't the wanderers! Welcome home, strangers!"
And then Natalie's voice, a little too cheerful perhaps, and just a shade too formal in tone:
"It's grand to see you both again. I hear you're married, Rex? Congratulations! You certainly gave us all a surprise!"
Rex looked down on her and grew red and embarrassed.
"Does look a little that way, doesn't it?" he hedged. "Perhaps it was a little irregular. Perhaps I should have had a high-hat affair with the doo-dabs and invited all my friends to be ushers, had two stringed bands and a procession. . ."
He tried to grin with his old happy-go-lucky manner, but somehow he couldn't make it; stood there like an awkward boy, grinding his heel in the snow; and floundered about among the words of his vocabulary to find suitable expression for his embarrassed thoughts. When he lifted his eyes to look into the big brown eyes of his former playmate, he found a wide, sad look in them as they searched him keenly for just that fleeting instant. Somehow for the fraction of a second their glances got tangled, trying to fathom each other, then they drew away.
"We must hurry on," said Natalie formally. "Marcia and I are on an errand of mercy to take a Christmas gift to a poor little sick kiddie in my Sunday school class, and I have to get back early to read to Daddy. See you again, boys!" She managed a quick, almost brilliant little smile at Rex. "And, of course, I want to meet your wife, Rex," she added politely. Then she turned with Marcia and went down the street. She didn't look back or even seem to hear when Rex murmured a belated, "Why, yes, come and see--" He paused and saw himself trying to explain to Florimel who Natalie was. But by that time the two girls were walking briskly away and the rest of his inarticulate sentence did not register.
"Nice girls!" commented Paul quite unnecessarily, merely because he couldn't endure the silence that there would have been if he had said nothing.
"Certainly!" said Rex with usual dignity.
"I think they're both peaches, if you ask me," stated Stan, trying to help fill in the breach. Then, having established a long-known fact, they walked on in silence, each thinking his own turbulent thoughts.
***
In Mary Garland's lovely, big room at the front of the house, where a wood fire was burning softly, two big wing chairs were placed one on either side of the hearth in an inviting way. She motioned to Florimel to take the pleasanter one where she could see the wide stretch of snowy landscape from the broad, low window.
"Sit down, my dear, and we'll talk it over," said Mary Garland, praying in her heart for strength and wisdom to speak the right words.
"You needn't take the trouble to call me 'my dear,'" said Florimel hatefully, mimicking her tone with an impudent twist in pie shop vernacular.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" said Mary Garland. "I didn't realize that might be unpleasant to you."
"Well, I'm not dear to you, of course," explained Florimel, "and there's no use in your pretending that I am. I don't see any point to it. You couldn't possibly love me."
"Why, I don't know," said Mary Garland, studying this curious girl keenly. "I am taking it for granted that you love my son and that he loves you. And I love my son; therefore, for his sake, I should love you. For his sake at first, of course, and--afterward--for your own sake, I hope!"
Florimel stared at her. This was a new kind of philosophy that she had never heard before. For the instant her mouth was stopped. At last she said, stirring uneasily, "Well, I don't think there's any need to bother. It isn't very likely to happen!"
"Why, I don't see why not," said Mary Garland, trying to speak cheerfully. "Why shouldn't you and I go to work to make it happen?"
"Suit yourself," she said with a shrug. "I shan't do anything about it. I'm not interested."
Mary Garland studied her sadly again for a minute or two, and then she said gently, "I'm sorry, because I think we might have a very happy time together if you felt differently about it."
"Well, I don't feel differently," said the girl with a belligerent lifting of her chin.
"I wonder why you want to take an attitude like that," said Mary Garland sadly. "You know, we really could all be much happier together if we liked one another and were trying to be pleasant to each other. You would have a much nicer time yourself, I'm sure, and I know Rex would be much happier. We all would be."
"Well, I'm not in the least interested to have you happy, not any of you, and as for Rex, he knows what he can do. He can refuse to let you treat him the way you have. He knows his rights, and he ought to stand on them and get his property. And then we could go off and live where we liked, and you could go on and do as you darn please for all I'd care. You can't expect us to think anything of you when you act that way to us."
"I don't think you will find my son feels that way. He feels that he owes love and loyalty and respect to his family."
"Well, he doesn't! He doesn't owe you a thing! He didn't ask to be born, did he? That's all nonsense! Children don't have to do what their parents say. They don't owe their parents anything at all. It's their own lives they're living, not their parents' lives. Their parents did just as they pleased before them; why shouldn't they? And you can't get around me that way. I'm modern, and I don't believe in any of that old-time gaff. It's all a lot of baloney! I believe in every man for himself."
"Yes?" said Mary Garland. "Do you happen to know the rest of that quotation? Well, I guess it wouldn't be of any use to talk anymore if that is the way you feel. I will excuse you."
"Oh, you don't have to excuse me," said Florimel contemptuously. "I'd go away if I wanted to. There comes Rex. That's what I was waiting for, anyway!" And the new daughter-in-law marched out of the room.
***
Meantime the two girls, Marcia Merrill and Natalie Sargent, walked on silently for almost a block before Natalie s
aid, "Rex doesn't look married, does he?"
Marcia cast a quick glance at her.
"Do people have a special look when they're married?" she asked.
Natalie laughed half apologetically.
"Why yes, I always fancied they did. Maybe it was imagination. I suppose I shouldn't have said that. I was just thinking aloud. I didn't mean anything."
"I know," said Marcia. "I have strange thoughts like that sometimes, too. But I would have said, 'Rex doesn't look happy,' instead of 'married.' He doesn't. He really doesn't. He didn't seem at ease and like himself."
"I guess that was what I meant," said Natalie slowly. "Rex was always so happy and kind of glad at everything."
"Yes, wasn't he? I'd hate to think that was over for him. He was always the best fun and seemed kind of dependable, just like Paul, only perhaps a bit more jaunty, merrier. I wonder what kind of girl he's married. That would likely make all the difference in the world."
"Yes, I suppose so." Natalie's eyes were sad and thoughtful, as if she had suddenly been set away from her old friends, as if she were looking backward at a childhood that had been very glad, realizing that it was over forever.
Marcia gave her another quick look and sighed softly. She didn't like to see bright, youthful Natalie gone suddenly mature.
"Well, we'll get hold of Sylvia by herself someday and find out a lot of things without seeming to ask. She'll tell us. I've only seen her once since they came home, and I thought she looked awfully sad. That was in church this morning. It wasn't like Sylvia to look sad. But then, I suppose it's sad enough business to have Rex married so unexpectedly like that, not while he's hardly more than a kid, no matter who he married."
"Yes," said Natalie. "I think it must be terrible for his mother. I know my mother would feel it if I got married sort of on the sly without letting the family know. I always think of the afterward. No matter what excuse he had for doing it that way, he loses such a lot. No memory of a pleasant wedding with his family present! And he must know they don't like it, no matter how nice she is."
"She couldn't be so nice, or she wouldn't have allowed him to do it that way," mused Marcia.
"Don't let's talk that way about her, Marcia," said the other girl. "For there will be an afterward for us all; we've likely got to meet her sometime. It's better for us not to let our minds get prejudiced against her. If we even think that, a lot of it will show in our expressions, don't you think? And I don't want that to happen through me, anyway. For after all, Rex has been our good friend through a lot of happy years, and we can't go back on him just because he got married impulsively. And maybe it isn't so impulsive after all. Perhaps we'll find that out when we see her."
Marcia gave her a quick touched look.
"That's an ideal way to look at it, Nat. I wish I were as sweet as you are! The old Adam--or Eve!--gets up in me and gets angry at Rex that he could do a thing like that! After knowing you and having you for a companion all these growing-up years, to think he would find anybody else, no matter how lovely she is! I just can't forgive him for it, Nat!"
"Oh, don't, Marcia!" said Natalie with a grieved look and a quick catch in her breath. "You know, we were just chums! Only children having a good time together! There was never anything between us but friendship!"
"I know!" said Marcia. "Of course, there wasn't! I understand, and I do suppose that it was the very fact that Rex wasn't grown up yet that made him do a silly thing like this. But honestly, Nat! It seems awful! You know, he grew up feeling that all girls were fine and sweet like you and Sylvia, and I'm just afraid that he'll wake up pretty soon and find out that they are not! I'm afraid there is a lot of sorrow in the future for Rex, and he deserves it, too. I thought he had better sense. I really did!"
"Well," said Natalie, "we don't know all about it, and let's not speculate. Let's just pray that the afterward won't be so bad."
"Not like Esau's, you mean?" Marcia said sadly with a smile. "'Afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.'"
Natalie gave her friend a look as if her words had been a knife piercing her heart, and she shrank from the thought of them.
"Oh, not that, Marcia; I hope not that for Rex! Rex loves the Lord, I'm sure. Do you know that verse in Jeremiah twenty-nine, eleven? 'For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.' I came on such a beautiful translation of it yesterday, the literal Hebrew. It was so beautiful I learned it. Listen! 'I know the plans that I have for you, saith the Lord, plans of peace and not of evil, to give you an afterwards, and the things that you long for.' Isn't that wonderful? Let's pray that Rex may have an afterward like that."
"Yes!" said Marcia, as if she were taking a vow. "But, you know," she went on, "there's another afterward in the Bible, and I'm thinking that will be God's answer to all this for Rex. 'Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.' It looks to me as if Rex had done wrong, and it may be necessary for him to have some chastening."
"Yes," said Natalie, "perhaps you're right."
"Well," said Marcia thoughtfully, "let's just put him in God's hands and bear him up continually in prayer."
"Yes," said Natalie softly.
Then they reached the house where the little pupil lived to whom they were carrying a Christmas gift, and their conversation was at an end. But Marcia kept her friend's words continually in her heart and wondered over the hurt look in Natalie's eyes. Natalie must have cared a good deal, she decided.
Chapter 14
Florimel had flung into a dress and met Rex at the front door.
"I thought you were going to take me for a walk," she said, her hat in her hand, her coat over her arm.
Rex gave her a quick, startled look, trying to read her face. Was more trouble brewing, or was she ready to be reasonable?
"Why, sure!" he said, and then he gave a quick glance about on the others. "Would any of the rest of you like to go?"
"No, they don't want to go," said Florimel with a rude little laugh. "I want you all to myself for a while."
"Certainly," said Paul courteously. "I couldn't go, anyway. I promised Mother to do something for her when I got back."
"So did I," said Stan and vanished up the stairs in long strides.
So Rex helped Florimel on with her coat, and when it was buttoned, she held her small red lips up for a kiss and nestled against him for an instant the way she used to do in those first days before they came home.
Rex's heart quickened a beat or two. Was she trying to tell him she was sorry for the outrageous way in which she had been acting? Perhaps she and his mother had been having a nice understanding talk and she was beginning to see how she had misunderstood everyone. So they went out and started down the snowy road.
Florimel was looking very pretty, at least according to her own ideas of beauty. Her lips were very red, and there were blue shadows touched under her eyes that she thought gave her an interesting, sophisticated look. Also she was on her good behavior for the moment and using all her airs and graces, a reminder of their recent brief honeymoon. Almost Rex took new courage as they turned into the street and he began to point out the places where his friends lived and tried to make her acquainted with the neighborhood, now and then putting in a bit of a happening of his boyhood, letting her get glimpses of himself as he was growing up.
Apparently she was taking it all in eagerly, and she swept him an adoring glance now and then that made him sure she was going to be different now.
He walked her down past the old schoolhouse, where he went to school as a little boy, and then past the high school. He showed her the church where he attended Sunday school, though she didn't pay so much attention to that. And then he took her through the snowy park and told her stories of the ho
lidays there with celebrations. It was all very interesting to Rex himself to be acquainting her with his early life, and Florimel was having her own amusement in seeing the glances of admiration that were being cast at herself and her good-looking husband.
"And now," she said, as they turned, apparently to go back to the house, "where do you skate? You've told me a lot about how you used to skate. Is it a rink? Why can't we go there and skate now? They have skates for rent, don't they?"
He gave her a quick, startled look.
"No, it's not a rink," he said. "It's the creek. It's swell down there. We could walk down there and see it, if you're not too tired."
"Tired? Heck, no! Come, let's hurry and get some good skating in before dark! Do they charge much for the skates?"
"Oh, they don't have skates for rent. Everybody owns his own skates, of course. But we won't have to buy any. We have plenty of skates at the house. I think we can find a pair to fit you. We'll hunt around and see. But we can't skate today. This is Sunday, you know. Had you forgotten?"
"Sunday? What's that got to do with it? Don't they allow people to skate on Sunday in this town? It must be an awfully hick town."
"Why, no, there isn't any town law against it," said Rex, with a sudden sinking of his heart at her lack of understanding, "but we just don't do it. Most church people around here keep the day sacred."
"What's that to us? Come, let's go get the skates!"
"No," said Rex decidedly, "not today! Our family has never gone in for amusements on Sunday, and I don't, either. I don't think it's right."
"Right!" said Florimel in amazement. "What's right? Anything is right that you want to do."
"No," said Rex. "I wasn't brought up that way!"
"Oh, that old, stuffy family again! I'm about fed up on them."
"Look here, Florimel. There's one thing I won't stand for, and that is for you to discount my family! I don't want to wish them on you, of course, if you really don't like them, but you've got to get acquainted with them to see whether you do or not. After all, you made out to me in the beginning that you had none of your own; I'm only trying to share mine with you!"