The Beloved Stranger - By Grace Livingston Hill Page 0,91

and she came forward to officiate at the donning of the dress with a long sorrowful look on her face.

It was just at that moment that there came a tap at the door, and the maid handed in a package.

“It was special delivery,” she explained. “I thought maybe you’d want it right away.”

“You might’ve known she’d have no time to bother with the like of that now,” said Gemmie ungraciously, taking the package from the girl.

“Oh, but I want to see it, Gemmie,” cried Sherrill. “Thank you, Emily, for bringing it up. I want to see everything. You don’t suppose anybody is sending a wedding present, do you, Aunt Pat? Don’t tell me I’ve got to go through all that again!”

“Open it up, Gemmie!” ordered Aunt Pat. “It might be something Graham has had sent to you, you know, Sherrill.”

With something like a sniff, Gemmie reached for the scissors and snipped the cords.

“It’ll not be from him!” she said tartly. “It’s from across the water!”

“Across the water? Europe?” said Sherrill and reached for the package.

“Hmm! Across the water!” said Aunt Pat, sitting up eagerly. “Open it quick, Sherry. It might be interesting!”

Chapter 20

If Carter McArthur had been told on the first day out from New York that before the end of the voyage he would be almost reconciled to his fate as husband of a penniless bride, he would have been astonished. But it was nevertheless true.

Arla Prentiss had always been a clever girl, and Arla McArthur driven by necessity became almost brilliant in managing her difficult affairs. She had taken the material at hand and used it. Even Hurley Kirkwood and the two old high school classmates became assets in the affair. Before the voyage was over, she had even won out with the man Sheldon and used him to her own ends.

How they came to be seated at a table in a pleasant but obscure corner of the dining room with Hurley Kirkwood, Helen and Bob Shannon, and a very deaf old man who paid no attention to any of them, was never known to Carter McArthur. He was very angry when he discovered it, and put Arla through the third degree, but in the end he saw it was a good thing. There was nobody at the table they needed to be nervous about. The three old acquaintances had never heard of Sherrill Cameron and her gorgeous wedding at which she was not the bride, and would be very unlikely to hear now, at least before the voyage was over. Moreover, they were good company, and there was a certain pleasant intimacy that it could not be denied relieved the strain under which both Arla and Carter had been. There was no danger of some embarrassing question coming up.

Carter grew quite genial and like his old youthful self in their company, accepted the stale jokes about his fondness for Arla with the same complacency that he used to do in the old days when they first began to go together, and actually treated Arla with a degree of his former devotion. If he realized that Hurley Kirkwood was sending home daily bulletins of the honeymoon to a devoted group of fellow citizens, it only filled him with a vague satisfaction. It comforted his self-esteem to feel that his hometown still honored him even though Sherrill Cameron had found out that he was a scoundrel.

Besides all this there was a certain amount of protection in having one’s own private little clique. It was almost as good as if Arla had been willing to stay in her stateroom and pretend to be seasick.

Then one evening, near the end of the voyage, Carter, coming out on deck to seek Arla where she usually sat, found her walking the deck arm in arm with the great financier, conversing with him vivaciously and seeming to be entirely at her ease.

She was wearing the loveliest of Sherrill Cameron’s evening dresses, the orchid chiffon, and with the moonlight gleaming on her gold hair, she looked like a dream. Evidently the financier thought she did also, for he was bending graciously to her and smiling.

Carter withdrew to a distance and watched them from afar, his eyes narrowing, his admiration growing for his lovely wife. Either she was going to be his utter undoing, or else somehow she had managed to wrap Sheldon around her little finger.

They had it out that night in the stateroom, very late, in a brief session. Carter poured abuses upon her,