She was passing by on Peter's arm. The pair of them looked as if they ought still to be going to school.
Peter's face wore precisely the same expression as must have adorned it when he first took his place at roll-call among the sixth-form "Bloods."
The bridesmaids twittered behind large bouquets of sweet-peas.
Everybody was standing. Everybody was howling a hymn, what time all craned their necks and stealthily mounted hassocks to stare at Ferlie ... Ferlie, who hated people to see her at emotional moments.... He would wake in a little while to find her beside him, seeking shelter from the Thing which had whitened her face with terror....
"Dearly Beloved, we are gathered together in the sight of God..." Ah, well, if the man thought so.
Cyprian felt certain that, whatever God had seen fit to do in Cana of Galilee, He was not presiding amongst these wedding-guests.
Every now and then a gap in the swaying pews would give him a glimpse of Ferlie's mother dabbing at her face with a handkerchief, in token that she must be regarded as bereft of a daughter against her will. At intervals, she was, doubtless, thanking God that she had done her duty.
Cyprian again sought refuge in the hymn-book.
The mutterings up at the altar were stilled and various people had escaped from confinement to wander through the vestry-door in the wake of the chief actors in this religious farce. Or was it tragedy?
While bitter thought was crowding thus against bitter thought in his mind, his gaze became involuntarily fixed upon the lines of the hymn the choir was singing to fill in time: