“Where is she now?”
“Up in her room smashing the rest of her wedding-presents, I suppose,” said Mrs. Hardacre.
“Eh, what? Can't do that. All locked up downstairs in the library,” came from the chair by the fire.
“Oh, don't make idiotic remarks, Benjamin,” snapped his wife, viciously.
The air was electric with irritation. Connie, a peacemaker at heart, forgot her mission in the face of the new development of affairs, and spoke soothingly. Norma could not break off the engagement three days before the wedding. Such things were not done. She would come round. It was merely an attack of nerves. They refused to be comforted.
“God knows what it is,” said Morland. “I thought things were perfectly square between us. She was n't cordial before dinner, I'll admit; but she let me put those beads round her neck. I asked her to wear them all the evening, as there were only the four of us.”
“The Spencer-Temples sent an excuse this afternoon,” Mrs. Hardacre explained.
“She agreed,” Morland continued. “She wore them through dinner. Then everything any one of us said seemed to get on her nerves. I talked about the House. She withered me up with sarcasm. We talked about the wedding. She begged us, for God's sake, to talk of something else. We tried, so as to pacify her. But of course it was hardly possible. I said I had met Lord Monzie yesterday—told me he and his wife were coming on Wednesday. She asked whether Ascherberg and the rest of Monzie's crew of money-lenders, harlots, and fools were coming too. I defended Monzie. He's a friend of mine and a very decent sort. She shrugged her shoulders. You know her way. Mrs. Hardacre changed the subject. After dinner I saw her alone for a bit in the drawing-room. She asked me to take back the pearls. Said they were throttling her. Had n't we better reconsider the whole matter? There was still time. That was the beginning of it. Mr. and Mrs. Hardacre came up. We did all we knew. Used every argument. People invited. Bishop to perform ceremony. Duchess actually coming. Society expected us. The scandal. Her infernally bad treatment of myself. No good. Whatever we said only made her worse. Ended up with a diatribe against society. She was sick of its lies and its rottenness. She was going to have no more of it. She would breathe fresh pure air.
“The Lord knows what she did n't say. All of us came in for it. Said shocking things about her mother. Said I did n't love her, had never loved her. A loveless marriage was horrible. Of course I am in love with her. You all know that. I said so. She would n't listen. Went on with her harangue. We could n't stop her. She would n't marry me for all the bishops and duchesses in the world. At last I lost my temper and said it was my intention to marry her, and marry me she should. Don't you think I was quite right? She lost hers, I suppose, tore off the pearls, made a sort of peroration, declaring she would sooner die than commit the infamy of marrying me—and that's the end of it.”
He threw out his hands in desperation and turned away. His account of events from his point of view was accurate. To him, as to Norma's parents, her final revolt appeared the arbitrary act of unreason. They still smarted resentfully under her lashes, incapable of realising the sins for which they were flagellated.