第32章 CHAPTER VIII(3)

"but I warn you that such concealments between husband and wife are not wise. He loves you and would only love you the more for your frankness in confessing what you seem to consider a discreditable episode: though I for my part am free to tell you that you will be lucky if your future life affords you the opportunity of doing anything else so much to your credit. But the chances are that he will find it out sooner or later; and that may not be so agreeable, either to him or to you. Better tell him all now."

But Grace pictured to herself the aristocratic pride of an hidalgo shocked by the suggestion of the plebeianism of trade; and she would not consent to the revelation.

But the general's prediction was fulfilled sooner than might have been expected.

For, after they were married, Don Miguel decided to visit the Atlantic coast on the wedding journey; and one of the first notable places they reached was, of course, New York. Don Miguel was delighted, and was never weary of strolling up Fifth Avenue and down Broadway, with his beautiful wife on his arm. He marvelled at the vast white pile of the Fifth Avenue Hotel; he frowned at the Worth Monument; he stared inexhaustibly into the shop-windows; he exclaimed with admiration at the stupendous piles of masonry which contained the goods of New York's merchant princes. It seemed to be his opinion that the possessors of so much palpable wealth must be the true aristocracy of the country.

And one afternoon it happened that as they were strolling along Broadway, between Twenty-third Street and Union Square, and were crossing one of the side-streets, a horse belonging to one of Lord and Taylor's delivery- wagons became frightened, and bolted round the corner. One of the hind wheels of the vehicle came in contact with Grace's shoulder, and knocked her down. The blow and the fall stunned her. Don Miguel's grief and indignation were expressed with tropical energy; and a by-stander said, "Better carry her into the store, mister; it's their wagon run her down, and they can't do less than look after her."

The counsel seemed reasonable, and Don Miguel, with the assistance of a policeman, lifted his wife and bore her into the stately shop. One of the floor-walkers met them at the door; he cast a glance at their burden, and exclaimed, "Why, it's Miss Parsloe!"

And immediately a number of the employees gathered round, all regarding her with interest and sympathy, all anxious to help, and--which was what mystified Don Miguel --all calling her by name! How came they to know Grace Parsloe? Nay, they even glanced at Don Miguel, as if to ask what was HIS business with the beautiful unconscious one!

"This lady are my wife," he said, with dignity. "She not any more Miss Parsloe."

"Oh, Grace has got married!" exclaimed the young ladies, one to another; and then an elderly man, evidently in authority, came forward and said, "I suppose you are aware, sir, that Miss Parsloe was formerly one of our girls here; and a very clever and useful girl she was. I need not say how sorry we are for this accident: I have sent for the physician: but I cannot but be glad that the misfortune has at least given me the opportunity of telling you how highly your wife was valued and respected here."

At this juncture, Grace opened her eyes: she looked from one face to another, and knew that fate had brought the truth to light. But the physical shock tempered the severity of the mental one: besides, she could not help being pleased at the sight of so many well-remembered and friendly faces; and, finally, her husband did not look by any means so angry and scandalized as she had feared he would. Indeed, he appeared almost gratified. The truth probably was, he was flattered to see his wife the centre of so much interest and attention, and at the discovery that she had been in some way an honored appanage of so imposing an establishment. So, by the time Grace was well enough to be driven back to her hotel, the senor was prattling cheerfully and familiarly with all and sundry, and was promising to bring his wife back there the next day, to talk over old times with her former associates.

Such was Grace's punishment: it was not very severe; but then her fault had been a venial one; and the episode was of much moral benefit to her. She liked her husband all the better for having nothing more to conceal from him; her vanity was rebuked, and her false pride chastened; and when, in after-years, her pretty daughters and black-haired sons gathered about her knees, she was wont to warn them sagely against the un-American absurdity of fearing to work for their living, or being ashamed to have it known.

But the married life of Miriam and Harvey Freeman was characteristically American in its happiness. The representatives of the oldest and of the latest inhabitants of this continent, their union seemed to produce the flower of what was best in both. Their wedding is still remembered in that region, as being everything that a Southern Californian wedding should be; and the bride, as she stood at the altar, looked what she was,-- one of those women who, more than anything else in this world, are fitted to bring back to earth the gentle splendors of the Garden of Eden. In her dark eyes, as she fixed them upon Freeman, there was a mystic light, telling of fathomless depths of tenderness and intelligence: it seemed to her husband that love had expanded and uplifted her; or perhaps that other spirit in her, which had battled with her own, had now become reconciled, and therefore yielded up whatever it had of good and noble to aggrandize the gentle victory of its conqueror. Somehow, somewhere, in Miriam's nature, Semitzin lived; and, as a symbol of the peace and atonement that were the issue of her strange interior story, her husband preserves with reverence and affection the mysterious garment called the Golden Fleece.