On Fanshaw's desk was a large white envelope and within that envelope another envelope which contained engraved cards faced with tissuepaper. Fanshaw pulled off the tissuepaper and ran the nail of his little finger lightly across the lettering.
Mr. and Mrs. Heaton W. Harrenden
Announce the Marriage of their Daughter
Alice
to Mr. Chamberlain C. Mason
at Twelve O'clock, Noon,
February Fifteenth, Nineteen Hundred and Twelve
at Harrenden Manor, Durham, Massachusetts.
Then there was a little card
For the accommodation of guests a special train will leave the North Station, Boston, at eleven fifteen, returning from Durham at five thirty.
And another little card
Mr. and Mrs. Heaton K. Harrenden request the pleasure of your company at the wedding breakfast at two o'clock, February Fifteenth, Nineteen Hundred and Twelve, at Harrenden Manor.
A letter from Cham had been tucked in:
Dear Fanshaw: You've got to come. Mrs. Harrenden says she wants an old-fashioned wedding, but Allie and I are going to try to pep it up a bit.
Yours, Cham.
Let's see, Fanshaw was thinking, what ought one to wear at a noon wedding? Noon. The time Cham and I took those two chorus girls canoeing at Norumbega Park, the mudsmell of the river.... And now Cham's marrying an heiress. Harrenden's Snowflake Meal. Like telegraph poles from the train the years slip by, so fast and nothing to catch hold of. Ought I to get a cutaway?
Through the coal smoke that gripped his throat Fanshaw caught a whiff of roses. A girl in a mink coat with a large bunch of pink roses at her waist had just brushed past him. She must be going to the wedding too, he thought, and started walking in the direction she had gone, following with his eyes the signs that announced the trains: Portland Express, North Shore Local....