“I hope so, too,” Marie had answered. “I am sorry, Captain Glen, and I am very glad.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I am sure that Clotilde would never have made you happy.”
She gazed up at him in a curious way as she spoke, and it seemed to Joseph that Captain Glen looked puzzled and wondering. Then his face lit up, and he was going to speak to Miss Marie, when little Richard Millet came rushing up, saying:
“I say, Glen, hang it all! play fair. Don’t monopolise the company of all the ladies. Miss Marie, may I have the pleasure?”
He offered his arm as if he were going to take her through some dance instead of from the big landing amongst the flowers into the drawing-room; but instead of taking the offered arm, Joseph seemed to see that Miss Marie bowed gravely, and, looking handsome and queen-like, laid her hand upon the arm of Lord Henry Moorpark, who, very quiet and grave, had been hovering about ever since they rose from the table. Then the old gentleman had walked off with her, leaving little Mr Millet very cross, and it seemed to Joseph that he said something that sounded like a bar across a river, but whether it was weir or dam, Joseph’s brains were too much confused to recall.
In fact, all this came out by degrees in the calm and solitude of his pantry, when he had recovered next day from a splitting headache; and then it was that he recalled how foolishly everybody behaved when Miss Clotilde—Mrs Elbraham, he meant—went off with her rich husband: how Miss Philippa wept upon her neck, and Miss Isabella trembled, and her hands shook, when she kissed the young wife; how Mr Montaigne seemed to bless her, and afterwards go and stand by Miss Ruth, taking her hand and drawing it through his arm, patting the hand at the same time in quite a fatherly way.
Lady Anna Maria Morton, too, was there, standing with that stuck-up Mr “Rawthur” Litton, and Miss Marie with Lord Henry, and Lady Littletown, who seemed to have the management of the whole business, with Captain Glen; and at last, after the Honourable Philippa had kissed Mrs Elbraham once again, and then nearly fainted in little Dick Millet’s arms, the bride and bridegroom passed on towards the carriage, while people began to throw white slippers at them, and shower handfuls of rice, some of which fell on the bride’s bonnet and some upon the bridegroom, a good deal going down inside his coat-collar and some in his neck. But he went on smiling and bowing, and looking, Joseph thought, very much like a publican who had been dressed up in tight clothes, and then in consequence had burst into a profuse perspiration.
Glen was standing close by the carriage with a half-laugh upon his face as the bridegroom passed, and Joseph thought he looked very tall and strong and handsome, and as if he would like to pitch Mr Elbraham into the middle of the fountain.
And then, just as they were getting into the carriage, it seemed to Joseph that Miss Clotilde—he meant Mrs Elbraham, the rich financier’s wife—turned her head and looked at Captain Glen in a strange wild way, which made him turn aside and look at Miss Marie, when the bride went for the first time into a hysterical fit of sobbing as she was helped into the carriage, where Mr Elbraham followed her smiling red smiles. The steps were rattled up, the door banged, the footman waited a moment as the chariot moved away; and then sprang up into the rumble beside Mrs Elbraham’s maid, and away went the chariot as fast as four good post horses could take it towards London, bound for Charing Cross Station.