"It's funny, isn't it, our getting engaged at the same time," Harry went on after a moment. It was the first reference he had made to the coincidence.
"Oh, yes," said James, "it's one of the funniest things I can remember."
"And the funniest part of it is that neither of us seems to have suspected about the other. At least I didn't."
"Oh, neither did I; not a thing."
"And practically nobody else did either, apparently."
"No. It might have been just the other way round, for all anybody knew—you and Beatrice, and Madge and me."
Harry could not but take away from that conversation and from the whole voyage a vague feeling of disappointment. Since he heard of James' engagement he had entertained an elusive conviction that love coming into their lives at so nearly the same time should somehow make a difference for the better between them. When he tried to put this idea into words, however, he found his mind mechanically running to such phrases as "deeper sympathy" and "fuller understanding," all of which he dismissed as sentimental cant. It was easy to reassure himself on all grounds of reason and commonsense; James and he were in no need of fuller understandings. And yet, especially after the above conversation, he could not but be struck by a certain inapproachability in his brother which for some reason he could not construe as natural undemonstrativeness.
The wedding took place in an atmosphere of unconstrained formality. Harry was not able to get a boat until two days after it, and he could not resist the temptation of writing Madge all about it that very night, though he knew the letter could hardly reach her before he did:—
"It was quite a small wedding, chiefly because, as far as I can make out, there are only some thirty-odd dukes in the kingdom. It occurred at the odd hour of 2:30, but that didn't seem to prevent any one from enjoying the food, and more especially the drink, that was handed around afterward at Lady Archie's. Lord Moville, Beatrice's uncle, was there and seemed greatly taken with James. After he had got outside about a quart of champagne he amused himself by feeling James' biceps and thumping him on the chest and saying that with a fortnight's training he'd back him for anything he wanted against the Somerset Cockerel, or some one of the sort, most of which left James rather cold, though he bore it smiling. His youngest daughter (Lord M.'s), a child of about eighteen, apparently the only living person who has any control over him, was quite frank about it. 'Fido's drunk again,' she announced pleasantly to all who might hear. 'Oh, so's Ned,' said Jane Twombly, Beatrice's sister; 'there's no use trying to help it at weddings, I find!' Just then Lady Archie came running up in despair. 'Oh, Sibyl,' she said, 'do try to do something with your father. He's been threatening to take off his coat because he says the room's too hot, and now he wants old Lady Mulford to kiss him!' And off darts Sibyl into the dining-room where her father and Ned Twombly stand arm in arm waving glasses of champagne and shouting 'John Peel' at the top of their lungs. 'Fido!' she shouted, running straight up to him, 'put down that glass directly and come home! Instantly! Do you hear? You're disgracing us! The next time I take you out to a wedding you'll know it!' 'Oh, Sib,' pleaded the noble Marquis, 'don't be too hard on us! Only drinkin' bride's health—must drink bride's health—not good manners not to. Sib shall drink with us; here's a glass, Sib—for his view, view HALLO! would awaken the dead—' 'Fido, do you know what you're doing? You're ruining your season's hunting! Gout-stool and Seidlitz powders all the winter for you, if you don't go easy!' But still Fido refused to obey till at last the dauntless child went up and whispered something in his ear, after which he calmed down and presently followed her out of the house, gently as a lamb. 'She threatened to tell her mother about the woman in Wimbledon,' explained Jane to me. 'Of course every one knows all there is to know about her, including Aunt Susan, but he hasn't found that out yet, and it gives Sib rather a strangle-hold on him. Good idea, isn't it? Marjorie—Ned's sister, you know—has promised to work the same trick for me with Ned, when the time comes.' I hope I am not more straight-laced than my neighbors, but do you know, the whole atmosphere struck me as just a teeny-weeny bit decadent...."
After he reached home Harry saw that it would be quite useless, what with Madge and other diverting influences, to try to finish his play in New Haven, so he repaired to the solitudes of the Berkshires for the remainder of the autumn. He occupied two rooms in an almost empty inn in Stockbridge, working and living for two months on a strict régime. It was his habit to work from nine till half-past one. He spent most of the afternoon in exercise and the evening in more writing; not the calm, well-balanced writing of the morning, but in feverish and untrammeled scribbling. Each morning he had to write over all that he had done the night before, but he found it well worth while, discovering that reason and inspiration kept separate office hours.