"This woman loves Monsieur le Capitaine! Bon! Two are better than one; we will avenge ourselves together, my beautiful incognita."
And then he looked sharply at her companion, and found that her face was familiar to him. Surely he had dined at that woman's house once. Oh, yes! to be sure, it was that insufferable little chatterbox, Mrs. Hazeldine. He remembered all about her now.
There was a good deal of pushing and cramming at the doorway. By the time Vera could get out of the stifling heat of the crowded church most of the wedding party had driven off, and the rest were clamouring wildly for their carriages; she herself had got separated from her companion, and when she could rejoin her in the little gravelled yard outside, she found her shaking hands with effusion with the foreign-looking gentleman who had sat next her in the church, but whom, truth to say, she had hardly noticed.
"Let me present to you my friend," said Cissy. "Miss Nevill, Monsieur D'Arblet—you will walk with us as far as the park, won't you?"
"I shall be enchanted, Mrs. Hazeldine."
"And wasn't it a pretty wedding," continued Mrs. Hazeldine, rapturously, as they all three walked away together down the shady side of the street; "so remarkably pretty considering that there were no bridesmaids; but Mrs. Romer is so graceful, and dresses so well. I don't visit her myself, you know; but of course I know her by sight. One knows everybody by sight in London; it's rather embarrassing sometimes, because one is tempted to bow to people one doesn't visit, or else one fancies one ought not to bow to somebody one does. I've made some dreadfully stupid mistakes myself sometimes. Did you notice the rose point on that old lady's brown satin, Vera?"
"That was Lady Kynaston."
"Oh, was it? By the way, of course, you must know some of the Kynastons, as they come from your part of the world. I wonder they didn't ask you to the wedding."
Vera murmured something unintelligible. Monsieur D'Arblet looked at her sharply. He saw that she had in no way recovered her agitation yet, and that she could hardly bear her companion's brainless chatter over this wedding.
"That has been no ordinary love affair," said this astute Frenchman to himself. "I must decidedly cultivate this young lady's acquaintance, for I mean to pay you out well yet, ma belle Hélène."