It was bad enough to contemplate Helen's marriage in
distant prospect, but the sudden, almost peremptory desire for marrying
at Eastertide, a little less than two months away, was absurd. There
were "business reasons arising from the presidential campaign in the
fall," John Taylor had telegraphed; but there was already too much
business in the arrangement to suit the Colonel. With Harry it was
different. Indeed it was his own quiet suggestion that made John Taylor
hurry matters.
Harry trusted to the novelty of his father's new wealth to make the
latter complacent; he himself felt an impatient longing for the haven of
a home. He had been too long untethered. He distrusted himself. The
devil within was too fond of taking the bit in his teeth. He would
remember to his dying day one awful shriek in the night, as of a soul
tormenting and tormented. He wanted the protection of a good woman, and
sometimes against the clear whiteness of her letters so joyous and
generous, even if a bit prim and didactic, he saw a vision of himself
reflected as he was, and he feared.
It was distinctively disconcerting to Colonel Cresswell to find Harry
quite in favor of early nuptials, and to learn that the sole objection
even in Helen's mind was the improbability of getting a wedding-gown in
time. Helen had all a child's naive love for beautiful and dainty
things, and a wedding-gown from Paris had been her life dream.
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