Mark put Iris into the motor—a radiantly pretty bride—and Douglas got in beside her, after muttering something about the old man being in extraordinarily good form to-day and inclined to get above his boots.
"We of the younger generation——" began Mr. Douglas Garrett, quite in his old manner, and then looked as though he had suddenly recollected the advanced years of Sir Julian himself, and subsided into the shelter of the motor without another word.
His father, having already hurried to the back of the car and affixed there a white satin shoe and a bedroom slipper, with much boisterous assistance from Ruthie, proceeded to deliver a valedictory harangue from the step.
"God bless you, my two dearr children, and shower upon you all the blessing of the married state. Send the old man a postcard from your first stopping-place, and, Iris, my dearr new daughter, you'll keep my son up to writing, and I shall be ready for you both in the dearr little house at home, whenever you like to come there. Also," said Mr. Garrett hopefully, "we shall meet in London. I think nothing of running up there. Good-bye—good-bye—bless you both."
He stood at the door waving a large clean handkerchief delicately scented with eau-de-Cologne, his shiny top-hat rather to one side and the ends of his beautifully waxed moustaches standing out stiffly. His kind old eyes shone with emotion.
"Yourr loss," he remarked, with simple sententiousness, to Mark Easter, "your loss is ourr gain. That's a pretty gurrel and a good gurrel, I feel sure. I appreciate my boy's good fortune, I assure you."
He shook hands with them all, begged them to visit Swindon, thanked them again and again for their kindness to himself and his dearr boy Douglas, and took his leave.
"I will not intrude upon you any further," was all his reply to Mark's cordial invitation to remain. "You have been goodness itself to an old man. Good-bye to you all, good-bye."
"I think, in Auntie Iris' place, I should have preferred the father to the son," said Julian, as he went homeward with his wife.
"Poor old man! There's something very genuine about him, in spite of his vulgarity," replied Lady Rossiter, with that leniency of tone that most successfully drapes a rather disparaging utterance.