“Dinner!” Phyllis called in to them.
They went into the dining-room.
3
In the middle of the table was a glass bowl brimmed with sweet peas, and around it a wreath of smilax; a festoon of smilax hung from the chandelier. At the head of the table stood impressively a platter bearing a steaming roast duck.
Mrs. Cowan hovered proudly over this spectacle, preparing to take her departure.
“Oh, not without a piece of the wedding-cake!” cried Rose-Ann, and cut it for her.
Immensely gratified, and having wished the bride happiness, and at the last moment bestowed upon her a motherly kiss, Mrs. Cowan went, bearing the piece of cake carefully wrapped in a napkin.
Clive stared after her. “Very interesting,” he said, “she takes home a piece of her own cake—”
“No longer her own,” Rose-Ann finished, “and no longer merely cake—but a piece of Wedding Cake! Will she put it under her pillow, I wonder, and dream of getting another husband? She’s a widow, and her husband used to get drunk ‘something awful.’ Yes, she was telling me all about it—I think by way of warning, so I wouldn’t be too badly disillusioned by the facts of marriage. ‘You can’t expect ’em to be angels,’ she said. So you see Felix, I’m prepared for anything!”
This speech jarred upon Felix. It was too much in the vein that Clive had been indulging all evening. He wondered if he were going to become critical of Rose-Ann, now that he had a sense of possession with regard to her. He said to himself that Rose-Ann was over-wrought and he himself over-sensitive.