"Certainly," said Pearl. "How could I help it?"
Thereupon I grew bold and said something that Mrs. Radigan did not hear. Pearl laughed and Mrs. Radigan did not understand.
"It was funny," she said. "I really almost laughed myself. And all the rest was so lovely that it did seem a pity that Ethel Bumpschus and that little Duke had to come in and spoil it. Did you notice them at the chancel? Everything was perfect; the Bishop of New York and the Bishop of Long Island and the other clergymen did look so smart in their vestments, and that Captain Lord Algernon is a magnificent man, like all heirs presumptious, and the bridesmaids were exquisite, Pearl, exquisite; and I have never seen such ushers, except those white spats did make their feet more attractive than their faces; but, 'pon my word, when I saw the Duke kneeling beside Ethel and just reaching her shoulders, I thought I should collapse. Do you suppose he said anything during the ceremony?"
"I think," said Pearl, "I think, but I wouldn't swear to it, of course, that when the Bishop asked if he took Ethel he said it would be jolly."
"Poor little fellow," said Mrs. Radigan. "He looked so good and kind and harmless when he came down the aisle on Ethel's arm that I really pitied him. Afterward at the breakfast I told Sir Charles Wigge how much sympathy I felt for his Grace, and he polished up his monocle and inspected me. 'Mrs. Jornigan,' he said—I think that is what he called me—'the Duchess of Nocastle is one of the loveliest women I have ever known. You must remember, when you speak of her, that she is an English peeress.' But still, Pearl, I could not help thinking how much better it would have looked if the Duke had died and Captain Lord Fitznit had succeeded him and you had taken him, and he had put on his Guards uniform, and you had the same bridesmaids and ushers, and the two of you——"
Pearl Veal has been simply astounding me of late. Suddenly she leaned over, and for an instant I thought her cigarette was going to burn my nose, but she remembered it.
"Well, Pearl, you are an idiot!" cried Mrs. Radigan. But as she closed the portières and disappeared, we did not heed her taunts.
Now I do not agree with Sally Radigan that the Duke and his bride spoiled the wedding. She exaggerates. Ethel was partly protected by her veil and really was quite presentable. Of course the Duke's head could only reach her shoulder, but as he kept on his toes and she stooped, they did not really appear so badly. And everything else was perfect. I have never seen a more expensive nor a smarter affair. St. Edward's was simply lined with flowers. The music was perfect, Roardika, Furioso, and the Skimphony Orchestra making it really the concert of the year. The pink waistcoats and white spats were a great success, and everybody said that Williegilt Bumpschus had an eye for beauty when he arranged the ushers. We made very few mistakes too. Tommy Clime did fix Archibald Killing in the same pew as Mr. and Mrs. Harry Stutter, which made a commotion in that part of the church, as Mrs. Stutter was once Mrs. Killing. Stuyve Mint, who is near-sighted, mistook the old family nurse for Mrs. Bumpschus and led her up the aisle with a grand flourish and put her in the seat of honor; but Williegilt managed to get her out just as I came up with the real mother of the Duchess-elect. So, on the whole, there was hardly a hitch. And it was worth going a long way to see those bridesmaids; worth going early and sitting through an hour of music; worth the long wait afterward for your carriage, with all the attendant perils of such a crowd as filled the streets. Visions in pink those girls were, stepping airily down a rosy pathway. Angelica Clime with Gladys Tumbleton, Clarissa Mudison with Emily Lumpley, Hebes all. And then Pearl Veal!
We talk of the daughters of a hundred earls. I have seen them, too. God save me from them! Give me this daughter of Kansas City, whose blood runs red. No proud anæmia pales her cheek. She can boast a family as old as the Fitznits, a hundred generations of men and women, rugged folk with good digestions and little else. They left her no crest. She had to adopt one. But from them came the most perfect face and form in all the town—the red-gold hair that frames that perfect face; the round, dimpled cheeks from which the color never goes, but plays now deeper, now softer, like the sunlight on the clouds; those glorious blue eyes with the quiet gleam lurking in their depths; that mouth that says so little in words and yet speaks volumes; the foot, the hand—they would seem the heritage of the storied daughters of the storied nobles. She glided down the aisle that day, so quietly proud, so proudly quiet, that I doubt if in all that church, filled to suffocation with the smartest of the town, there came to one soul the thought that her grandfather was—But why think of it? As Mrs. Radigan says, money covers a multitude of ancestors.