“What is?” asked the Doña icily.
“Well, they haven’t known each other very long, have they? I don’t know ... marriage ... is so ...”
So this foolish, giggling, pink and white woman was not pleased about the marriage! She probably thought Concha was not good enough for her nephew.
And the Doña who, for the last few days, had been half hoping that the Immaculate Conception herself, star-crowned, blue-robed, would to-morrow step down from the clouds to forbid the banns and save her namesake from perdition—the Doña actually found herself saying with some heat: “They’ve known each other for nearly a year; that is surely a long time, these days. I see no reason why it shouldn’t be a most happy marriage.”
“Oh, I’m sure ... you know ... one always ...” murmured Lady Cust.
“Well, I must leave you to your rest. You have everything that you want?” and the Doña sailed out of the room.
Lady Cust smiled a little, and then sighed.
Dear old Rory! And what would Mab, her dead sister, think of it all? Oh, why had it not been she that had died in those old, happy days?
She went to her dressing-table and took up the folding leather frame. They were the photographs of a very beautiful young man, a true Brabazon—a longer limbed, merrier eyed Rory, with a full, rather insolent mouth.