He moved away now and, at the other end of the room, his back to her, came to a standstill, while his eyes dwelt on a large gilt-framed engraving that hung there; some former Salon triumph; a festive, spring-tide scene where young women in bustles and bonnets offered sugar to race-horses in a meadow, admired by young men in silk hats.
“Do you think this may make a difficulty?” Adrienne asked. “Make him more reluctant to take what is to come to him? It’s Mrs. Chadwick’s now, you know.”
“You’ve arranged it all so well,” said Oldmeadow, noting the gardenias in the young men’s button-holes, “that I don’t think they can get away from it.”
“But will they hate it dreadfully?” she insisted, and he felt that her voice in its added urgency protested, though unconsciously, against his distance; “I seem to see that they might. If they can’t take it as a sign of accepted love, won’t they hate it?”
“Well,” said Oldmeadow, trying to reflect, though his mind was far from Barney and Nancy, “dear Eleanor Chadwick doesn’t mind taking it, whatever it’s a sign of. And since it will come to Barney through her, I don’t think there’ll be enough personality left hanging about it to hurt much.”
“I wish they could take it as a sign of accepted love,” Adrienne murmured.
“Perhaps they will,” he said. “I’ll do my best that they shall, I promise you.”
It was one thing to promise it and another to know his hope that it might be a promise never to be redeemed. The cross-currents in his own thought made him light-headed as he stood there, his back to her, and examined the glossy creatures in the meadow. “Do you think it will all take a long time?” Adrienne added, after a little pause. “Will they be able to marry in six or eight months, say?”
“It depends on how soon Barney takes action. Say about a year,” he suggested. “They’d wait a little first, wouldn’t they?”
“I hope not. They’ve waited so long already. I hope it will be as soon as possible. I shall feel so much more peaceful when I hear they’re married. Could you, perhaps, make them see that, too?”