Cyprian bought the apple, caused it to be packed and sealed, and wrote the address in the shop; whence he despatched it to Ferlie, omitting even to enclose his card.
She did not acknowledge it but, at least, she did not send it back.
* * * * * *
With the dawning of her wedding day a fatalistic calm descended upon his tortured mentality, preparing him to see the thing decently through.
On account of Mr. Carmichael's illness the ceremony and reception were to be comparatively "quiet." But when Cyprian arrived, in response to exultant bells, at the fashionable church's door, whence a strip of red carpet protruded like a derisive tongue, his muffled senses perceived quite a formidable array of guests in wedding-garments who ostensibly came to pray and remained to stare.
An immaculate gentleman, blandly manipulating yards of scarlet cords suggestive of a royal lynching, inquired of him, "whether he were on the side of the bride or the bridegroom," and, receiving an inarticulate reply, pushed him into the end of the last pew and left him to his own devices with a hymn-book.
The organ blared joyously, as if the organist aimed at drowning the torrent of whispering and the squeaks of enraptured greeting uniting the pews.
Here and there, was a face known to Cyprian through the medium of the illustrated papers.
Fragments of conversation were wafted backwards through the lily-scented air.
"The mother really landed him, I believe."