Good-bye, boys!
I'm going to be married to-morrow.
Good-bye, boys!
I'm going from sunshine to sorrow.
No more sitting up till broad daylight.
Did a momentary chill cool the intensity of Dudley Pickering's ardour? If so he overcame it instantly. He despised Roscoe Sherriff. He flattered himself that he had shown Roscoe Sherriff pretty well who was who and what was what.
They would have a wonderful wedding—dozens of clergymen, scores of organs playing 'The Voice that Breathed o'er Eden,' platoons of bridesmaids, wagonloads of cake. And then they would go back to Detroit and live happy ever after. And it might be that in time to come there would be given to them little runabouts.
I'm going to a life
Of misery and strife,
So good-bye, boys!
Hang Roscoe Sherriff! What did he know about it! Confound him! Dudley Pickering turned a deaf ear to the song and wallowed in his happiness.
Claire walked slowly down the moonlit drive. She had removed herself from her Dudley's embraces, for she wished to be alone, to think. The engagement had been announced. All that part of it was over—Dudley's stammering speech, the unrestrained delight of Polly Wetherby, the facetious rendering of 'The Wedding Glide' on the piano by Roscoe Sherriff, and it now remained for her to try to discover a way of conveying the news to Bill.
It had just struck her that, though she knew that Bill was in
America, she had not his address.
What was she to do? She must tell him. Otherwise it might quite easily happen that they might meet in New York when she returned there. She pictured the scene. She saw herself walking with Dudley Pickering. Along came Bill. 'Claire, darling!' … Heavens, what would Dudley think? It would be too awful! She couldn't explain. No, somehow or other, even if she put detectives on his trail, she must find him, and be off with the old love now that she was on with the new.
She reached the gate and leaned over it. And as she did so someone in the shadow of a tall tree spoke her name. A man came into the light, and she saw that it was Lord Dawlish.
11