To K., sitting in the back of the church between Harriet
and Anna, the wedding was Sidney—Sidney
only. He watched her first steps down the aisle,
saw her chin go up as she gained poise and confidence,
watched the swinging of her young figure in its gauzy
white as she passed him and went forward past the
long rows of craning necks. Afterward he could
not remember the wedding party at all. The service
for him was Sidney, rather awed and very serious,
beside the altar. It was Sidney who came down
the aisle to the triumphant strains of the wedding
march, Sidney with Max beside her!
On his right sat Harriet, having reached the first
pinnacle of her new career. The wedding gowns
were successful. They were more than that—they
were triumphant. Sitting there, she cast comprehensive
eyes over the church, filled with potential brides.
To Harriet, then, that October afternoon was a future
of endless lace and chiffon, the joy of creation,
triumph eclipsing triumph. But to Anna, watching
the ceremony with blurred eyes and ineffectual bluish
lips, was coming her hour. Sitting back in the
pew, with her hands folded over her prayer-book, she
said a little prayer for her straight young daughter,
facing out from the altar with clear, unafraid eyes.
As Sidney and Max drew near the door, Joe Drummond,
who had been standing at the back of the church, turned
quickly and went out. He stumbled, rather, as
if he could not see.
The supper at the White Springs Hotel had not been
the last supper Carlotta Harrison and Max Wilson had
taken together. Carlotta had selected for her
vacation a small town within easy motoring distance
of the city, and two or three times during her two
weeks off duty Wilson had gone out to see her.
He liked being with her. She stimulated him.
For once that he could see Sidney, he saw Carlotta
twice.
She had kept the affair well in hand. She was
playing for high stakes. She knew quite well
the kind of man with whom she was dealing—that
he would pay as little as possible. But she
knew, too, that, let him want a thing enough, he would
pay any price for it, even marriage.
She was very skillful. The very ardor in her
face was in her favor. Behind her hot eyes lurked
cold calculation. She would put the thing through,
and show those puling nurses, with their pious eyes
and evening prayers, a thing or two.
During that entire vacation he never saw her in anything
more elaborate than the simplest of white dresses
modestly open at the throat, sleeves rolled up to
show her satiny arms. There were no other boarders
at the little farmhouse. She sat for hours in
the summer evenings in the square yard filled with
apple trees that bordered the highway, carefully posed
over a book, but with her keen eyes always on the road.
She read Browning, Emerson, Swinburne. Once
he found her with a book that she hastily concealed.
He insisted on seeing it, and secured it. It
was a book on brain surgery. Confronted with
it, she blushed and dropped her eyes.
