"Well, is that all?" laughed Connie.
"Quite all, Mrs. Todd," smiled Mr. Vaughan. "Please let me offer you every happiness."
But his thin queer face looked troubled as he shook Connie's hand, and he glanced at the tall sheepish young man with an expression of veiled bewilderment.
Muriel put down the pen, wondering why the pens in vestries and offices always disguise one's signature so effectively.
And then she caught sight of the bridegroom again and began another wonder. That is Connie's husband. That is my brother-in-law. They are married. They will share the same house, the same room. She will see him always, at breakfast, at dinner, when they get up in the morning. His relations are my relations. Connie is going to live at his father's house. Connie, Connie, who used to play in the day nursery at weddings, with a lace curtain over her head.
The bride did not wear a veil now, for this quiet war-wedding was far more chic. Dorothy Daunt and Peggy Mason, who had secured their young officers, assisted by six bridesmaids and a military escort were made to feel hopelessly ostentatious by the aristocratic restraint of the Hammond wedding. So Connie hid her bright hair beneath a large, white hat, and her white coat frock of soft silky material spoke the last word in decorous elegance. Her eyes shone with excitement, and she held her head high with reckless pride.
"She's almost beautiful," thought Muriel, and was dazed by the wonder of it all. For two days before, Connie had broken down again, and declared that whatever happened she could not go through with it. Mr. Hammond had said gruffly, "Look here, Rachel, had we better chuck it? I'll do something for the kid." But Mrs. Hammond had persisted, declaring that it was too late to withdraw now, when the wedding had been arranged, and every one would know. Then finally Connie herself had saved the situation, by crying out that since they'd pushed her into it she supposed that she'd go on. But if they knew what Thraile would be like, they hadn't the feelings of a toad, and for God's sake they weren't to fuss her any more, for she was fed up with it all.
But, after that, she had recovered her spirits. Even during the awful hour before the car arrived, she had not faltered in her attention given to gloves and hat and white suède shoes. And now she looked as though she had just gained her heart's desire in the rather pale, dark young man who kept looking sheepishly askance at his newly acquired father-in-law, as upon one who had bought, at the price of paying off the Todds' long-standing debts, the honesty of his erring daughter.
They stood waiting for something, the bride, the bridegroom, the Hammonds, the best man—a vaguely non-committal cousin of the Todds selected after much diligent searching by Mrs. Hammond, and imposed upon the now thoroughly intimidated Ben without compunction—Aunt Rose, Aunt Beatrice and half a dozen Bennet relatives.
"Well, Ben," smiled Mrs. Hammond tremulously, "aren't you going to do your duty?"