"Say what you like, she's a beautiful bride."
Like most very old ladies, this one suggested widowhood. Even in talking she exhaled the attenuated sadness that invests old people with a protective halo.
"Oh, she's just like the rest. What's in her favor is that she's fair. A brunette bride always makes you think of a fly in milk. At least, that's my opinion...."
That was a good start. One remark led to another; the conversation livened up. The ladies in their silk gowns felt conscious of sharing in pomp and an important ceremony.
"I was told she ran away from home last year, with...."
The carriage jolted and zigzagged, but the group sat undisturbed. Each felt drawn to the other three by a decidedly increasing sympathy.
What spirit haunted these carriages? All these people were held by an obsession. They had seen the bride in her starry whiteness and persistently retained an image with a halo round it. The bride was the sole topic.
"I don't approve of a double standard," said another lady. "They did a tremendous amount for her sister's wedding; you know they did, while they're not doing a thing for this poor child." A shrug of the shoulders. "I don't think it's fair."
Everything she said came out with a ripple in it from the unevenness of the paving. Her neighbor was plunged in dreams, unaware. A day triumphal arose out of the distant past when she too walked in white. "Twenty-seven years like one month! How time does fly!"
They warmed up to their subject.