it was early in december,—two months after the departure of edna and her little party from new york,—and they were all comfortably domiciled in the hotel boileau, in a quiet street, not far from the boulevard des italiens. this house, to which they came soon after their arrival in paris, might be considered to belong to the family order, but its grade was much higher than that of the hotel in which they had lived in san francisco. as in the former place, they had private apartments, a private table, and the service of their own colored men, in addition to that of the hotel servants. but their salon was large and beautifully furnished, their meals were cooked by a french chef, every one, from the lordly porter to the quick-footed chambermaid, served them with a courteous interest, and mrs. cliff said that although their life in the two hotels seemed to be in the main the same sort of life, they were, in reality, as different as an old, dingy mahogany bureau, just dragged from an attic, and that same piece of furniture when it had been rubbed down, oiled, and varnished. and ralph declared that, so far as he knew anything about it, there was nothing like the air of paris to bring out the tones and colorings and veinings of hotel life. but the greatest difference between the former and the present condition of this little party lay in the fact that in san francisco its principal member was mrs. philip horn, while in paris it was miss edna markham.
this change of name had been the result of nights of thought and hours of consultation. in san francisco edna felt herself to be mrs. horn as truly as if they had been married at high noon in one of the city churches, but although she could see no reason to change her faith in the reality of her conjugal status, she had begun to fear that captain horn might have different views upon the subject. this feeling had been brought about by the tone of his letters. if he should die, those letters might prove that she was then his widow, but it was plain that he did not wish to impress upon her mind that she was now his wife.
if she had remained in san francisco, edna would have retained the captain's name. there she was a stranger, and captain horn was well known. his agents knew her as mrs. horn, the people of the mary bartlett knew her as such, and she should not have thought of resigning it. but in paris the case was very different. there she had friends, and expected to make more, and in that city she was quite sure that captain horn was very little known.
edna's parisian friends, were all americans, and some of them people of consideration, one of her old schoolmates being the wife of a secretary of the american legation. could she appear before these friends as mrs. captain philip horn, feeling that not only was she utterly unable to produce captain horn, but that she might never be able to do so? should the captain not return, and should she have proofs of his death, or sufficient reason to believe it, she might then do as she pleased about claiming her place as his widow. but should he return, he should not find that she had trammelled and impeded his plans and purposes by announcing herself as his wife. she did not expect ever to live in san francisco again, and in no other place need she be known as mrs. horn.
as to the business objects of her exceptional marriage, they were, in a large degree, already attained. the money captain horn had remitted to her in san francisco was a sum so large as to astound her, and when she reached paris she lost no time in depositing her funds under her maiden name. for the sake of security, some of the money was sent to a london banker, and in paris she did not deposit with the banking house which captain horn had mentioned. but directions were left with that house that if a letter ever came to mrs. philip horn, it was to be sent to her in care of mrs. cliff, and, to facilitate the reception of such a letter, mrs. cliff made wraxton, fuguet & co. her bankers, and all her letters were addressed to them. but at edna's bankers she was known as miss markham, and her only parisian connection with the name of horn was through mrs. cliff.
the amount of money now possessed by edna was, indeed, a very fair fortune for her, without regarding it, as captain horn had requested, as a remittance to be used as a year's income. in his letters accompanying his remittances the captain had always spoken of them as her share of the gold brought away, and in this respect he treated her exactly as he treated mrs. cliff, and in only one respect had she any reason to infer that the money was in any manner a contribution from himself. in making her divisions according to his directions, her portion was so much greater than that of the others, edna imagined captain horn sent her his share as well as her own. but of this she did not feel certain, and should he succeed in securing the rest of the gold in the mound, she did not know what division he would make. consequently, this little thread of a tie between herself and the captain, woven merely of some hypothetical arithmetic, was but a cobweb of a thread. the resumption of her maiden name had been stoutly combated by both mrs. cliff and ralph. the first firmly insisted upon the validity of the marriage, so long as the captain did not appear, but she did not cease to insist that the moment he did appear, there should be another ceremony.
"but," said edna, "you know that cheditafa's ceremony was performed simply for the purpose of securing to me, in case of his loss on that boat trip, a right to claim the benefit of his discovery. if he should come back, he can give me all the benefit i have a right to claim from that discovery, just as he gives you your share, without the least necessity of a civilized marriage. now, would you advise me to take a step which would seem to force upon him the necessity for such a marriage?"
"no," said mrs. cliff. "but all your reasoning is on a wrong basis. i haven't the least doubt in the world—-i don't see how any one can have a doubt—that the captain intends to come back and claim you as his wife; and if anything more be necessary to make you such, as i consider there would be, he would be as ready as anybody to do it. and, edna, if you could see yourself, not merely as you look in the glass, but as he would see you, you would know that he would be as ready as any of us would wish him to be. and how will he feel, do you suppose, when he finds that you renounce him and are going about under your maiden name?"
in her heart edna answered that she hoped he might feel very much as she had felt when he did not come to see her in san francisco, but to mrs. cliff she said she had no doubt that he would fully appreciate her reasons for assuming her old name.
ralph's remarks were briefer, and more to the point.
"he married you," he said, "the best way he could under the circumstances, and wrote to you as his wife, and in san francisco you took his name. now, if he comes back and says you are not his wife, i'll kill him."
"if i were you, ralph," said his sister, "i wouldn't do that. in fact, i may say i would disapprove of any such proceeding."
"oh, you can laugh," said he, "but it makes no difference to me. i shall take the matter into my own hands if he repudiates that contract."
"but suppose i give him no chance to repudiate it?" said edna. "suppose he finds me miss edna markham, and finds, also, that i wish to continue to be that lady? if what has been done has any force at all, it can easily be set aside by law."
ralph rose and walked up and down the floor, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.
"that's just like a woman," he said. "they are always popping up new and different views of things, and that is a view i hadn't thought of. is that what you intend to do?"
"no," said edna, "i do not intend to do anything. all i wish is to hold myself in such a position that i can act when the time comes to act."
ralph took the whole matter to bed with him in order to think over it. he did a great deal more sleeping than thinking, but in the morning he told edna he believed she was right.
"but one thing is certain," he said: "even if that heathen marriage should not be considered legal, it was a solemn ceremony of engagement, and nobody can deny that. it was something like a caveat which people get before a regular patent is issued for an invention, and if you want him to do it, he should stand up and do it; but if you don't, that's your business. but let me give you a piece of advice: wherever you go and whatever you do, until this matter is settled, be sure to carry around that two-legged marriage certificate called cheditafa. he can speak a good deal of english now, if there should be any dispute."
"dispute!" cried edna, indignantly. "what are you thinking of? do you suppose i would insist or dispute in such a matter? i thought you knew me better than that."
ralph sighed. "if you could understand how dreadfully hard it is to know you," he said, "you wouldn't be so severe on a poor fellow if he happened to make a mistake now and then."
when mrs. cliff found that edna had determined upon her course, she ceased her opposition, and tried, good woman as she was, to take as satisfactory a view of the matter as she could find reason for.
"it would be a little rough," she said, "if your friends were to meet you as mrs. horn, and you would be obliged to answer questions. i have had experience in that sort of thing. and looking at it in that light, i don't know but what you are right, edna, in defending yourself against questions until you are justified in answering them. to have to admit that you are not mrs. horn after you had said you were, would be dreadful, of course. but the other would be all plain sailing. you would go and be married properly, and that would be the end of it. and even if you were obliged to assert your claims as his widow, there would be no objection to saying that there had been reasons for not announcing the marriage. but there is another thing. how are you going to explain your prosperous condition to your friends? when i was in plainton, i thought of you as so much better off than myself in this respect, for over here there would be no one to pry into your affairs. i did not know you had friends in paris."
"all that need not trouble me in the least," said edna. "when i went to school with edith southall, who is now mrs. sylvester, my father was in a very good business, and we lived handsomely. it was not until i was nearly grown up that he failed and died, and then ralph and i went to cincinnati, and my life of hard work began. so you see there is no reason why my friends in paris should ask any questions, or i should make explanations."
"i wish it were that way in plainton," said mrs. cliff, with a sigh. "i would go back there the moment another ship started from france."
so it was miss edna markham of new york who took apartments at the hotel boileau, and it was she who called upon the wife of the american secretary of legation.
