'To be returned to me again if you
do not marry Jim this summer--it is to be this summer, I think?'
'It was, sir,' she said with agitation. 'But it is so no longer.
And, therefore, I cannot take this.'
'What do you say?'
'It was to have been to-day; but now it cannot be.'
'The wedding to-day--Sunday?' he cried.
'We fixed Sunday not to hinder much time at this busy season of the
year,' replied she.
'And have you, then, put it off--surely not?'
'You sent for me, and I have come,' she answered humbly, like an
obedient familiar in the employ of some great enchanter. Indeed, the
Baron's power over this innocent girl was curiously like enchantment,
or mesmeric influence. It was so masterful that the sexual element
was almost eliminated. It was that of Prospero over the gentle
Ariel. And yet it was probably only that of the cosmopolite over the
recluse, of the experienced man over the simple maid.
'You have come--on your wedding-day!--O Margery, this is a mistake.
Of course, you should not have obeyed me, since, though I thought
your wedding would be soon, I did not know it was to-day.'
'I promised you, sir; and I would rather keep my promise to you than
be married to Jim.'
'That must not be--the feeling is wrong!' he murmured, looking at the
distant hills. 'There seems to be a fate in all this; I get out of
the frying-pan into the fire.
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