“Your mother seems to think it’s your uncle who ought to give you away.”
“Not you, mother?” Kate Clephane caught the instant drop in the girl’s voice. Underneath her radiant security, what suspicion, what dread, still lingered?
“I’m so stupid, dear; I hadn’t realized it was the custom.”
“Don’t you want it to be?”
“I want what you want.” Their thin-edged smiles seemed to cross like blades.
“I want it to be you, mother.”
“Then of course, dear—”
Mrs. Drover heaved a faintly disappointed sigh. Hendrik would certainly have looked the part better. “Well, that’s settled,” she said, in the tone of one who strikes one more item off an invisible list. “And now the question is, who’s to take your mother up the aisle?”
Anne and her mother were still exchanging smiles. “Why, Uncle Fred of course, isn’t he?” Anne cried.
“That’s the point. If your mother’s cousin comes from Meridia—”