In fact, they were anything but jokes. On Mondays and Thursdays she used to attend a class for women who, like herself, wished to be “up-to-date on culture and all that sort of thing.” They hired a teacher to cram them with odds and ends about art and politics and the “latest literature, heavy and light.” On Tuesdays and Fridays she had an “indigent gentlewoman,” whatever that may be, come to her to teach her how to converse and otherwise conduct herself according to the “standards of polite society.” Joe used to give imitations of those conversation lessons that raised roars of laughter round the poker table, the louder because so many of the other men had wives with the same ambitions and the same methods of attaining them.
Mrs. Ball came back to the subject of Anita. “I am glad you are going to settle with such a charming girl. She comes of such a charming family. I have never happened to meet any of them. We are in the West Side set, you know, while they move in the East Side set, and New York is so large that one almost never meets anyone outside one’s own set.” This smooth snobbishness, said in the affected “society” tone, was as out of place in her as rouge and hair dye in a wholesome, honest old grandmother.
I began to pace the floor. “Can it be,” I fretted aloud, “that Joe’s racing round looking for an Episcopalian preacher, when there was a Methodist at hand?”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t bring anything but a Church of England priest,” Mrs. Ball assured me, loftily. “Why, Miss Ellersly wouldn’t think she was married, if she hadn’t a priest of her own church.”
My temper got the bit in its teeth. I stopped before her, and fixed her with an eye that must have had some fire in it. “I’m not marrying a fool, Mrs. Ball,” said I. “You mustn’t judge her by her bringing up—by her family. Children have a way of bringing themselves up, in spite of damn fool parents.”
She weakened so promptly that I was ashamed of myself. My only excuse for getting out of patience with her is that I had seen her seldom in the last few years, had forgotten how matter-of-surface her affectation and snobbery were, and how little they interfered with her being a good mother and a good wife, up to the limits of her brain capacity.
“I’m sure, Mr. Blacklock,” she said, plaintively, “I only wished to say what was pleasant and nice about your fiancée. I know she’s a lovely girl. I’ve often admired her at the opera. She goes a great deal in Mrs. Langdon’s box, and Mrs. Langdon and I are together on the board of managers of the Magdalene Home, and also on the board of the Hospital for Unfortunate Gentlefolk.” And so on, and on.
I walked up and down among those wrapped-up, ghostly chairs and tables and cabinets and statues many times before Joe arrived with the minister—and he was a Methodist, McCabe by name. You should have seen Mrs. Ball’s look as he advanced his portly form and round face with its shaven upper lip into the drawing room. She tried to be cordial, but she couldn’t—her mind was on Anita, and the horror which would fill her when she discovered that she was to be married by a preacher of a sect unknown to fashionable circles.
“All I ask of you,” said I, “is that you cut it as short as possible. Miss Ellersly is tired and nervous.” This while we were shaking hands after Joe’s introduction.
“You can count on me, sir,” said McCabe, giving my hand an extra shake before dropping it. “I’ve no doubt, from what my young neighbor here tells me, that your marriage is already made in your hearts and with all solemnity. The form is an incident—important, but only an incident.”