"Sorry, old man," said Spence regretfully. "It's against the rules to kiss one's secretary."
Again they both laughed. But was it fancy, or was this laugh a trifle less spontaneous than the other? "Gracious!" said Desire, suddenly in a hurry, "I've hardly left myself time to dress."
CHAPTER XXII
It may be said with fairness that the reception given by Miss Campion for her nephew's bride left Bainbridge thoughtful. They had expected the bride to be different, and they had found her to be different from what they had expected. They could not place her; and, in Bainbridge, everyone is placed.
"I understood," said Mrs. T. L. Lawson, whose word in intellectual matters was final, "that young Mrs. Spence was wholly uneducated. A school teacher who met her on the train told my dressmaker that she had heard her admit the fact with her own lips. So, naturally, not wishing to embarrass a newcomer, I confined my remarks to the simplest matters. She did not say very much but I must confess—you will scarcely believe it—I actually got the impression that she was accommodating her conversation to me."
"Oh, surely not!" from a shocked chorus.
"It is just a manner she affects," comforted Mrs. Burton Holmes. "Far, far too assured, in my opinion, for a young bride. I hope it does not denote a certain lack of fine feeling. In a girl who had been brought up to an assured social position, such a manner might be understood. But—well, all I can say is that I heard from my friend Marion Walford yesterday, and she assured me that Mrs. Spence is quite unknown in Vancouver society. But, of course, dear Marion knows only the very smartest people. For myself I do not allow these distinctions to affect me. If only for dear Miss Campion's sake I determined to be perfectly friendly. But I felt that, in justice to everybody, it might be well for her to know that we know. So I asked her, casually, if she were well acquainted with the Walfords. At first she looked as if she had never heard of them, and then—'Oh, do you mean the soap people?' she said. 'I don't know them—but one sees their bill-boards everywhere.' It was almost as if—"
"Oh—absurd!" echoed the chorus. "Though if she is really English," ventured one of them, "she might, you know. The English have such a horror of trade."
These social and educational puzzles were as nothing to the religious problem. Bainbridge, who had seen Desire more or less regularly at church, had taken for granted that in this respect, at least, she was even as they were. But, after the reception, Mrs. Pennington thought not.