There was but one break in the proceedings. Pelleas, at Cousin Diantha’s urgent request attempting to play softly through the ceremony, reckoned without one of the keys which stuck fast with a long, buzzing sound and could not be released though every one had a hand at it. And finally Katinka herself, who had dusted the keyboard for so long that she understood it, had to come to the rescue while the parson waited for her “I will.”
As for me, by the time that it was all over I was crying softly behind the stove with as much enjoyment as if I had been Katinka’s mother. And not until I bent my head to hide a tear did I perceive that I had not changed my gown that morning. As if because one is seventy that is reason for losing one’s self-respect!
Pelleas put the rest in my head.
“Etarre,” he said, while we were having cherry sauce and seedcakes after the ceremony, “you’ve got your gray gown, haven’t you?”
“Why, yes,” said I, not understanding.
“And you don’t really need that white one....” He hesitated.
I saw what he meant. We looked across at the little bride, speechlessly happy in my old woman’s finery.
“Not a bit,” I said, loving Pelleas for his thought.
We smiled at each other with the tidings of a new secret.
That is why, when we reached home three nights later, we permitted Nichola to unpack our trunk and had no fear. The white lady’s-cloth gown was not there.