“My good man,” said Mrs. Loring, striding over my feet with an armful of bridesmaids’ frippery, “what a lot of room you take up! You are sure you have no engagement this evening?”
“Nothing of importance, Mrs. Loring,” I replied, looking up from an entry-book of bridal gifts I was curiously scanning, with mental notes of my own. “You may consider me entirely at your disposal. My duty is here to-night of all nights; and when you and Mrs. Carmichael can spare Caroline, I also have certain advice to give her not inappropriate to the occasion.”
“Don’t you think you’d better go and give Arthur the benefit of your wisdom?” she rejoined.
“Alas,” I replied, “it is too late—he cannot draw back now. He must take the inevitable consequences of engagement. He has made his bed——”
“I see no reason for your being indelicate, Mr. Butterfield,” answered Mrs. Chatterton; and she rustled away, dignity in flounces.
Never had my flat known such wealth of plate and tissue-paper. Had Jupiter, in wooing Danaë, adopted a silver currency, he could scarce have crowded more lavishly the Grecian tower. Ladies slipped in and out of the miscellaneous collection with feminine calculations and judgments, which I noted in secret joy, estimating, apparently, the whole affair in its comparison with previous functions. And above all, and more insistent from their very quietness, were heard the mysterious confabulations.
I crossed over to Mrs. Carmichael and Caroline. “Well, little sister,” I said, glancing at Mrs. Carmichael, “and what unspeakable things has Mrs. Kit been telling you now?”
“Oh, Rollo,” she replied, placing her hand pleadingly on my sleeve, “she hasn’t. Please don’t tease me to-night, dear. I am not a bit happy. I almost wish I was not going to be married.”
“Then she has?” I returned. “Mrs. Kit, how could you? But there—you’re all alike. They’re not in the least interested in you, Carrie, my dear. It’s just a wedding. A woman and a bridecake——”
“What do you know about it?” Mrs. Carmichael said disdainfully.