Ravenal: Will you be a poor man’s bride? (Darling!)
For fear of arousing suspicion, she did not dare put on her best dress in which to be married. One’s best dress does not escape the eye of a Parthy at ten o’clock in the morning, when the landing is Metropolis. With a sigh Magnolia donned her second best—the reseda sateen, basqued, its overskirt caught up coquettishly at the side. She determined on her Milan hat trimmed with the grosgrain ribbon and pink roses. After all, Parthy or no Parthy, if one has a hat with pink roses, the time to wear it is at one’s wedding, or never.
Ravenal vanished beyond the river bank immediately after breakfast next day; a meal which he had eaten in haste and in silence. He did not, the general opinion ran, look as crushed as his misdemeanour warranted. He had, after all, been guilty of the crime of crimes in the theatre, be it a Texas tent show or an all-star production on Broadway; he had held up the performance. For once the Cotton Blossom troupe felt that Mrs. Hawks’ bristling attitude was justified. All through the breakfast hour the stern ribbon bow on her breakfast cap had quivered like a seismographic needle registering the degree of her inward upheaval.
“I think,” said Magnolia, drinking her coffee in very small sips, and eating nothing, “I’ll just go to town and match the ribbon on my grosgrain striped silk——”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind, miss, and so I tell you.”
“But, Mama, why? You’d think I was a child instead of a——”
“You are, and no more. I can’t go with you. So you’ll stop at home.”
“But Mis’ Means is going with me. I promised her I’d go. She wants to get some ointment for Mr. Means’ chest. And a yard of elastic. And half a dozen oranges. . . . Papa, don’t you think it’s unreasonable to make me suffer just because everybody’s in a bad temper this morning? I’m sure I haven’t done anything. I’m sure I——”
Captain Andy clawed his whiskers in a frenzy. “Don’t come to me with your yards of elastic and your oranges. God A’mighty!” He rushed off, a distraught little figure, as well he might be after a wretched night during which Mrs. Hawks had out-caudled Mrs. Caudle. When finally he had dropped off to sleep to the sound of the monotonously nagging voice, it was to dream of murderous gamblers abducting Magnolia who always turned out to be Parthy.
In her second best sateen and the Milan with the pink roses Magnolia went off to town at a pace that rather inconvenienced the short-breathed Mis’ Means.