She hoped that Effie May had awakened from her doze, so great was her need just then of the shrewd, tolerant, entirely human counsel of her step-mother.
But Effie May had not awakened; nor did she wake again.
CHAPTER LVII
The funeral did great credit to the Misses Darcys' experience in such affairs. A crowded, beflowered church bore witness to the fact that Darcy was still a name to be reckoned with in the community. Not only the best people were there in quite sufficient numbers, but many of those lesser folk whose duties bring them happily into touch with the best people; milliners, modistes, clerks in the better shops, and so forth.
As Mr. Florsheimer of the Gents' Furnishing remarked to Miss Murphy of the Silks: "Such a loss to trade, ain't she?"
Among these humbler friends not a few genuine tears were shed, however, for Effie May had scattered her kindness impartially.
Joan, in solitary state as chief mourner, with the Misses Darcy sadly rustling in the pew behind her, was conscious of many curious glances turned her way. Perhaps her husband was the only person there whose eyes never turned in her direction. She was glad of her heavy veil, through which she might study him unobserved.
He sat just opposite among the other pall-bearers, grave and quiet, with the odd dignity still about him which had come at the time of his disgrace. She noted new lines in his face, an unexpected touch of gray in his boyish, curling hair. The ears, the freckles, the great, clumsy hands were still much in evidence; but somehow Archie had lost forever his slight touch of the ridiculous. Declining to run away from disgrace, facing his music, humbly but unafraid, it occurred to Joan that her husband was approaching rather nearly her own and her father's standard of gentlehood.