"We may regard the matter as settled now," whispered Francesca comfortably. "Anybody would ask anybody else to marry him, whether he was in love with her or not. If it weren't so beautiful and so touching, wouldn't it be amusing? Isn't the organist a darling, and doesn't he enter into the spirit of it? See him shaking with sympathetic laughter, and yet he never lets a smile creep into the music; it is all earnestness and majesty. May I peep now and see how they are getting on?"
"Certainly not! What are you thinking of, Francesca? Our only justification in this whole matter is that we are absolutely serious about it. We shall say good-bye to the organist, wring his hand gratefully, and steal with him through the little door. Then in a half-hour we shall know the worst or the best; and we must remember to send him cards and a marked copy of the newspaper containing the marriage notice."
Salemina told me all about it that night, but she never suspected the interference of any deus ex machina save that of the traditional God of Love, who, it seems to me, has not kept up with the requirements of the age in all respects, and leaves a good deal for us women to do nowadays.
"Would that you had come up this aisle to meet me, Salemina, and that you were walking down again as my wife!" This was what Dr.
Gerald had surprised her by saying, when the wedding music had finally entered into his soul, driving away for the moment his doubt and fear and self-distrust; and I can well believe that the hopelessness of his tone stirred her tender heart to its very depths.
"What did you answer?" I asked breathlessly, on the impulse of the moment.