"Names are made in heaven—like marriages," I aver, lighting a cigar.
"The same insight into human needs is shown in both cases," Pearl declares. "But, anyway, I could change mine."
"And, thank Heaven, not to Smith nor to Fitznit," I murmur devoutly.
"Thank Heaven," says she. And she raises her glass and murmurs softly, "To Us!"
Then we forget the Radigans again, the Mints and the Bumpschuses, the Nocastles and the Fitznits, and all those tiresome folk. Sometimes letters follow us, and when they start in time and follow fast they catch us and for a while drag us back again to home and friends. To-day we had quite a batch of them, mostly from Mrs. Radigan, with one from Mignonette Klapper announcing her engagement to Captain Lord Algernon Fitznit, and a marked paper containing a picture of the Guardsman and his fiancée, and telling all about the romance that began at the Long Island house. I must confess I can see nothing romantic in the match, for the giant soldier seemed to have too plain sailing; did nothing, just eyed Mignonette through his monocle while Mrs. Radigan read to him, as he smoked and sipped Scotch, and the girl played solitaire so innocently. Then he proposed and she took him, and that is the end of it. I suppose they arranged it the day of our wedding, for he was to leave Westbury next morning and she to start that night for her Milwaukee home. But she stayed over, announced the engagement at breakfast, and took him West to show to the family.
"Her conduct was horrid," wrote Mrs. Radigan to Pearl. "It makes my blood boil to think that all those hours when I was reading my novel to him, he was flirting with that little minx. I told you from the first that this is what you might expect if you persisted in your friendships with people you ought not to know. Now she will go to London and, with her money and his family, will be in the thick of the Court set and in prime shape to snub me back if I do not cringe. Her conduct the day of the wedding was dreadful, though I suppose you were too busy to notice it. She kept him trailing after her all day long, when he should have been attentive to Marian Speechless and Clarissa Mudison and Gladys Tumbleton, and all those nice girls who have been so kind to him since he came over. He simply ignored them and followed her around wherever she went, like a little dog, and after you had gone away in the car the two of them slipped out for a long walk and never got back till nearly dinner-time. The first I heard of the engagement was late in the evening, when, thinking no one was there, I happened to look into the library."
"Poor Sally!" said Pearl as she laid down the letter. "She will never forgive me for having a quiet wedding."
"A quiet wedding!" I cried. "What is a quiet wedding?"
My mind, of course, went back to the dreadful day—or three days, for the trouble began on Saturday—when the house filled with people and there was no rest till that afternoon, when we jumped into the car amid a shower of rubbish and flew away. There was all the worry about Green, enough to break down any man, particularly as there was no need of it, after all. He is my oldest friend, so I did want him to stand by me at that trying time, but, of course, he knows only queer people and I was sure he would behave like a fish out of water. But Green proved wonderful. He has picked up a lot of things in the past year, has quite changed his style of dressing, and as he is a handsome fellow, he got along splendidly with everybody, told some new stories, cleaned up considerable at bridge, beat Radigan at billiards, and killed a long Sunday evening for us with an improvised musicale, in which he and Miss Klapper did everything, except that Lord Algernon sang a drinking-song. The Count and Countess Poglioso Spinnigini invited him to visit them in Italy when they return there ten years hence; Marian Speechless got him promised for a week-end in June; Stuyve Mint asked him to go out to the races on their coach next week, and as for Mrs. Radigan, I heard her distinctly introduce him to Mrs. Hegerton Humming as the "most brilliant man I know."