“Have you discovered some new laws of life since you left us?”
Gwen proceeded to relate to her friends what they had arrived at concerning weddings in general; and she asked Nettie to find some means of realising their project.
“I should suggest a drive in your chariot to some isolated spot in the country. Stay in some labourer’s cottage, and on the day which would have been the one appointed by you in our past Society for the wedding, I should advise you to spend it in the fields and to have a mutual confession;—what I would call a complete reckoning of your two inner lives; for that ought really to be the true meaning of marriage, which was so rarely understood in our past Society.”
“This sounds very like Ibsen, dear Nettie,” remarked Eva.
“But what do you suggest after that?” asked Gwen.
“Stay away as long as you can; then return to your occupations here, for you know we cannot spare you for a very long time; there are so many things we want to launch before the season is over. Of course, no announcement of your marriage is required, you will tell your friends when you come back, and as to the rest of the world, it is immaterial whether they know it or not.”
“It certainly seems simple enough, and in that way we escape all foolish questions.”
“My dear Lord Somerville, I think that you will find that no one will take the slightest notice of your escapade. In London, what is past is seldom interesting,” added the little buffoon, who had for some time put this axiom to the test when she was on the Music Halls.
“I believe you are right,” answered Lionel, “and the saddest tragedy of last week has no chance against the daily scandals.”
“Society lives greatly on its own imagination”—the sententious humourist was taking a flight into speculative land. “Society is the biggest romancer you ever came across; it hates truth and bona-fide dramas; despises the scandals that have not been spun at their own fireside; and follows to the letter the well-known maxim, that truth makes the worst fiction.”