Lady Drummond had a surprising proposal to make. It seemed that her friend, Lady Iniscrone, had placed at Miss Gray's disposal for the wedding the big house on the Mall formerly occupied by Lady Anne Hamilton. Lady Iniscrone wrote that they had heard of Miss Gray from a friend of Lady Agatha Chenevix, and had felt interested in her progress ever since. Of course, remembering the tie which had existed between Lord Iniscrone's aunt and Miss Gray, Lord and Lady Iniscrone could never be without interest in Miss Gray's progress.
Mary smiled a smile of fine humour over the reading of the letter. At first she was in the mood to refuse. But, being her father's daughter, and so endowed with that sense of the comedy as well as the tragedy of life which makes it easy to regard things and persons equably, she consented at last. She would have preferred to be married from Wistaria Terrace, but she had no difficulty in making a concession to Robin's mother.
So the wedding-breakfast was spread in the dining-room where she and Lady Anne used to have their meals together. Mrs. Gray held a terrified reception of the few fine folk whom Lady Drummond had declared it necessary to ask in the long drawing-room with the three windows where Lady Anne used to sit with little Fifine in her lap.
Mary had wished to be married from the poor little house where she had grown up, but on her wedding day she felt that she had done as Lady Anne would have wished. There was nothing changed in the house: the old-fashioned substantial furniture, the faded carpets and curtains, were just the same. There were one or two familiar faces among the servants. After all, Lord and Lady Iniscrone had used the house little, since Lord Iniscrone had developed a chest affection which kept him following the sun round the world for three-fourths of the year.
The marriage had taken place earlier at the big, dim old church behind which Wistaria Terrace hid itself away, and the few fine folk were not bidden to the wedding but to the reception. A great many glittering things were spread out on the tables in the long drawing-room. It was surprising how many well-wishers the new Lady Drummond seemed to have in the great world. Sir Denis Drummond had come over for the wedding, and Nelly was a bridesmaid, with Mary's type-writing sister, Marcella. She was a different Nelly from her of a couple of months earlier, her delicacy gone, her old pretty bloom come back, her eyes bright as of old.
"Mrs. Langrishe wants me to return to her!" she confided to Mary, "but we are going to Sherwood Square. You know, he is on his way home. In a week or two he will be on the sea. He must come to me, not find me there waiting for him. Do you know, Mary, that though his mother and sister have taken me to their hearts, he has not written me a line? You don't suppose, Mary, that he could be going to keep silence now?"
"Of course not," said Mary. "Seeing what you have suffered for him——"
"He must never know that," Nelly said, with gentle dignity, "until he has spoken. What should I do, Mary, if he never spoke? But I think everyone would keep my secret, even his sister and mother. I asked them not to speak of me in their letters. I am in suspense, Mary."
"It will not be for long," the happy bride assured her. As though she were wiser than another in knowing the way of any particular man with any particular maid!