That such an estrangement should create a profound sensation was natural enough. People could hardly believe their eyes or ears. Friends and acquaintances stared at the astounding truth, like stuck pigs. The projected divorce of an archbishop would not have occasioned one quarter of such amazement.
Again, it was natural enough that, having recovered her breath, Mayfair should prepare to let out a perfect squeal of dismay. Her sparrow was dead. The bear was robbed of its whelps.
The bellow, however, died on Society’s lips.
Having rammed home the punch, Giles and Katharine proceeded to apply the healing balm.
In the first place, the linen they were washing in public was spotlessly clean. Secondly, the two laundered comfortably, without the slightest embarrassment. Thirdly, their cheerful disregard of the traditions of Separation turned the tragedy into opéra bouffe.
The general feeling of disappointment was still-born, to be immediately succeeded by a sense of bewildered relief.
Captain and Mrs. Festival became more popular than ever.
Isolated efforts to brand them died an inglorious death.
Mrs. Soulsden Clutch, who faithfully attended Divine Service at St. Paul’s, Knightsbridge, and had nagged and bullied her husband into another world, announced that words failed her, and then spoke long and authoritatively upon the advertisement of indecency and of contempt for marriage vows.
Mrs. Busby Shawl, surnamed ‘The Comforter,’ went further and cut the two in the Park, afterwards broadcasting her achievement with the innocent air of one who, blinded with integrity, has shamed the Devil and is now uncertain whether it was a Christian thing to do.