“She, if I read her aright, could have dispensed with the ceremony, but the churchwarden had his views. Obviously! Can’t you imagine him—all whiskers and wedding-ring?”
“But I thought he was clean-shaven! I thought he was good-looking!” I sympathized with the Baxter girl’s dismay.
“Ah—I speak in parables——”
“You do hate him, don’t you?” said Miss Howe with her wide, benevolent smile. “Now, I wonder——”
Mr. Flood flushed into disclaimers, while the woman beside him looked at Miss Howe with half-closed eyes.
“I? How could I? Our orbits don’t touch. I approved, I assure you. An invaluable experience for our Madala! A year of wedded love, another of wedded boredom, and then—a master-piece, dear people! Madala Grey back to us, a giantess refreshed. Gods! what a book it will be!”
“I wonder,” said Miss Howe vaguely.
Anita answered her with that queer movement of the head that always reminded me of a pouncing lizard.
“No need! I’ve watched Madala Grey’s career from the beginning.”
“For this I maintain—” Mr. Flood ignored her—“Eden Walls and Ploughed Fields may be amazing (The Resting-place I cut out. It’s an indiscretion. Madala caught napping) but they’re preliminaries, dear people! mere preliminaries, believe me.”