Sylvia began to plan out a comparison of dress with architecture, bringing out the insistent tendency in both to the rococo, to the burying of structural lines in ornamentation. The cuff, for instance, originally intended to protect the skin from contact with unwashable fabrics, degenerated into a mere bit of "trimming," which has lost all its meaning, which may be set anywhere on the sleeve. Like a strong hand about her throat came the knowledge that she was planning to say all this to please Felix Morrison, who was now within fifty feet of her, being married to another woman.
She flamed to fever and chilled again to her queer absence of spirit…. There was a chorister at the end of the line near her, a pale young man with a spiritual face who chanted his part with shining rapt eyes. While he sang he slipped his hand under his white surplice and took out his watch. Still singing "Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," he cast a hasty eye on the watch and frowned impatiently. He was evidently afraid the business in hand would drag along and make him late to another appointment, "—is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen!" he sang fervently. Sylvia repressed an hysterical desire to laugh.
The ceremony was over; the air in the building beat wildly against the walls, the stained-glass windows, and the ears of the worshipers in the excited tumult of the wedding-march; the procession began to leave the chancel. This time Sylvia caught one clear glimpse of the principals, but it meant nothing to her. They looked like wax effigies of themselves, self-conscious, posed, emptied of their personalities by the noise, the crowds, the congestion of ceremony. The idea occurred to Sylvia that they looked as though they had taken in as little as she the significance of what had happened. The people about her were moving in relieved restlessness after the long immobility of the wedding. The woman next her went down on her knees for a devout period, her face in her white gloves. When she rose, she said earnestly to her companion, "Do you know if I had to choose one hat-trimming for all the rest of my life, I should make it small pink roses in clusters. It's perfectly miraculous how, with black chiffon, they never go out!" She settled in place the great cluster of costly violets at her breast which she seemed to have exuded like some natural secretion of her plump and expensive person. "Why don't they let us out!" she said complainingly.
A young man, one of those born to be a wedding usher, now came swiftly up the aisle on patent leather feet and untied with pearl-gray fingers the great white satin ribbon which restrained them in the pew. Sylvia caught her aunt's eye on her, its anxiety rather less well hidden than usual. With no effort at all the girl achieved a flashing smile. It was not hard. She felt quite numb. She had been present only during one or two painful, quickly passed moments.
But the reception at the house, the big, old-fashioned, very rich Sommerville house, was more of an ordeal. There was the sight of the bride and groom in the receiving-line, now no longer badly executed graven images, but quite themselves—Molly starry-eyed, triumphant, astonishingly beautiful, her husband distinguished, ugly, self-possessed, easily the most interesting personality in the room; there was the difficult moment of the presentation, the handclasp with Felix, the rapturous vague kiss from Molly, evidently too uplifted to have any idea as to the individualities of the people defiling before her; then the passing on into the throng, the eating and drinking and talking with acquaintances from the Lydford summer colony, of whom there were naturally a large assortment. Sylvia had a growing sense of pain, which was becoming acute when across the room she saw Molly, in a lull of arrivals, look up to her husband and receive from him a smiling, intimate look of possession. Why, they were married! It was done!
The delicate food in Sylvia's mouth turned to ashes.
Mrs. Marshall-Smith's voice, almost fluttered, almost (for her) excited, came to her ears: "Sylvia—here is Mr. Page! And he's just told me the most delightful news, that he's decided to run over to Paris for a time this fall."
"I hope Miss Marshall will think that Paris will be big enough for all of us?" asked Austin Page, fixing his remarkably clear eyes on the girl.
She made a great effort for self-possession. She turned her back on the receiving-line. She held out her hand cordially. "I hope Paris will be quite, quite small, so that we shall all see a great deal of each other," she said warmly.