“What are they doing here?” he demanded suspiciously, staring at the two.
“Oh, never mind them,” Mary said. There was a malevolent gleam in her violet eyes. This was the recompense of which she had dreamed through soul-tearing ages. “Just tell your father your news, Dick.”
The young man had no comprehension of the fact that he was only a pawn in the game. He spoke with simple pride.
“Dad, we're married. Mary and I were married this morning.”
Always, Mary stared with her eyes steadfast on the father. There was triumph in her gaze. This was the vengeance for which she had longed, for which she had plotted, the vengeance she had at last achieved. Here was her fruition, the period of her supremacy.
Gilder himself seemed dazed by the brief sentence.
“Say that again,” he commanded.
Mary rejoiced to make the knowledge sure.
“I married your son this morning,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I married him. Do you quite understand, Mr. Gilder? I married him.” In that insistence lay her ultimate compensation for untold misery. The father stood there wordless, unable to find speech against this calamity that had befallen him.
It was Burke who offered a diversion, a crude interruption after his own fashion.