"She is making a very bad match: he hasn't a cent...."
"You forget she's well over twenty-two. A girl has got to take a husband when she finds one. Husbands don't grow in the front-yard."
The perspiration came out in beads on their fleshy foreheads. A stop. What had happened? A block? An accident? Plumed hats were stuck out of carriage doors. "Get in again, madam, you can't see anything. You'll break your aigrette. If I tell you...."
The procession shortened like a snake drawing in its coils.
"Ha, ha! I know someone who will not find it dull to-night!"
Their laughter took on a sharper edge; smiles lurked in the corners of their mouths just deep enough to show that they understood, that they had their own recollections and at the same time were in well-bred company.... This lady with the air of knowing a thing or two.... What?... Without waiting to be importuned, she drew herself up heroically and whispered something over the frilled hat of the little girl beside her. They threw themselves back beaming, stuffed full. "Impossible!"
Boots creaked, gowns rustled. The carriages began to clatter through the streets again.
The laughter of young people. Not very loud. Hiding something sweet and indefinably solemn. She was only fourteen. She had nothing but her thin little feelings, which, however, kept her straight and haughty as an Infanta. By leaning over slightly she succeeded in seeing the bride. The bride ... the white word flitted about her like a light ball.... But straightway she saw the bride her eyes fell. The same emotion had surprised her on Sunday at mass when she saw the host rise in a beam of light, and also when she listened to the hand-organ grind out arias. Ecstasy leapt within her and hope sang: "Me too some day...."
The last carriage kept behind; a low coupé with drawn shades. A stiffly wired bouquet shed its fragrance within. As it sped rapidly by, heads turned around for a long look and for the sake of the virginal memory it left behind.