Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/318

 foolishness, but he could not resist the temptation.

They were married at two o'clock, at the American mission. Never had the missioner officiated at a stranger wedding. In the first place, there was something in the bride's eyes that baffled him. They were more like the eyes of a person in a trance. The girl looked not at objects, but through them. And the man appeared to be all hands and feet; he could not move without blundering into something; and he spoke as if he was afraid of the sound of his voice. Besides, one of his eyes was discolored, his lips were bruised, a piece of court-plaster stretched diagonally across his forehead. The missioner decided that this was a plain case of mismating. The girl had beauty and breeding; the man had neither, though none could doubt the frank honesty of his blue eyes.

In other latitudes the missioner would have insisted upon knowing a little more of the family history, and in the event of their refusing to acquaint him with the facts which inclined them toward matrimony would have politely declined to act. But this was the Orient, a world where laxity disintegrated vigor, where all the mysterious kinks in human nature developed quickly and became the salients in character.

He took William aside, however, and asked him if the young lady was, or had been, ill.

"Ill? Why, no. But she's been through a lot of worry. She'll be all right when things settle down again."