CHAPTER XXXVII

IN WHICH A TRYING CEREMONY GOES FOR NOTHING, AND A FATHER PUTS DOWN HIS FOOT

Dollie and Ann walked in after lunch, looking, as I think now, a shade less natural than usual, but only a shade. Their visit was so remarkable that I wish to record its progress with minute accuracy.

Dollie greeted us with a somewhat piano "Wow, wow!" and sat himself in the most comfortable chair. Ann took a chair by the window and asked how Lavender was, and if she might see her.

Naomi went out to arrange for the display, and Dollie asked if cigarette smoke was bad for it.

I asked what he meant by "it," and he said he meant Lavender, and Ann told him with some asperity that he ought to be more careful in referring to babies. She seemed more critical of him even than usual.

I asked after her father, and she said he had seemed all right at breakfast.

"Better than he'll be at dinner, I guess," Dollie said darkly, and Ann frowned.

After a long silence Dollie said that it had turned colder. He then asked me if I had had any racing tips lately, and I asked him in return how I, moving in the society that I did, could expect to have any. "I go nowhere," I said. "Except to the Zoo. Besides, I don't want tips."

"Why don't you ask the keepers?" he said, and Ann told him not to be absurd.

Naomi, entering with Lavender, made a diversion.

Ann asked if she might hold her and was exceedingly tender, and pretty in her tenderness. Dollie threw away his cigarette, surveyed Lavender minutely through his monocle, and said nothing, but sighed heavily.

Naomi asked Dollie where he was dining that night, and he looked at Ann.

Ann said she was not sure.

I drew Dollie to the window and said, "Well?"

He gripped me by the hand and took out another cigarette, and I guessed that these young hesitants had this morning come at last to grips, and that the day was named, and I was feeling very complacent about my devilish perspicacity when Ann took off her gloves and revealed the newest wedding-ring on earth.

And then, Lavender having been removed, on account of her immaturity, we had the story. These young idiots had been registered that very morning, and Sir Gaston did not yet know.

"But why weren't you married properly?" Naomi asked.

"Well," said Ann, "we didn't want the fuss of a wedding, and, honestly, I wanted to save father all that trouble and expense."

"But it's so furtive-looking," Naomi said.

"That's all right," said Dollie. "We had witnesses. Farrar was there and Gwen. Farrar signed the book like a good 'un. All straight and above board."

"Yes," said Naomi, "that's all right, I know, but, Ann, think of your grandmother, old Mrs. Ingleside. She would have given everything to be at your wedding. And your mother, Dollie."

"Oh well," said Dollie, "my mother gave me up as a conventional being years ago. She'll be jolly glad I'm settled and done for. That's what she'll say."

"But your sisters? How they would have enjoyed being bridesmaids!"

"Not they," said Dollie; "they've done it too often. Besides, I protest against marrying in order to give one's people enjoyment. That's all out of date. Ann and I wanted to save fuss, and, by Jingo, we've done it!"

"And what is the next move?" I asked.

"Well," said Ann, "we wondered if you would come down to Buckingham Street with us and help with father."

"I like that," I was beginning to say, when, "Of course he will," said Naomi.

Sir Gaston was in when we arrived.

After greeting me, he looked at Dollie and remarked that he had the appearance of one who had backed a loser.

Dollie groaned. "Not so bad as that, I hope," he murmured.

Ann went over to her father and kissed him.

He seemed rather surprised, but merely asked what he had done to receive such an unusual attention.

Ann replied that she felt like it, and I realized that the time had come to stop this drama of reticences and disguised feelings.

"Well, Ingleside," I said, "I must say you take it very much as a matter of course."

"What?" he asked.

"Why, a kiss from a pretty, young, married woman," I said.

"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, running his keen eyes over Ann and Dollie.

"Yes," I said, "this is Mrs. Adolphus Heathcote. She asked me to introduce her."

"I'm very glad," he said. "Have some cake," and we all mercifully laughed, and the strain snapped.

"But," he said a little later, "we must now fix the date of the wedding."

"We are married," said Ann. "Look at my ring."

"Yes," said her father. "That's all right. But we'll forget that. I can't have my daughter marrying in this hole-and-corner way. Saving trouble and expense is all very well, but there are things more important. One of them is giving my aged mother an opportunity of seeing you at the chancel steps. There are others, too, but that comes first. Now get out an almanack--I'm sure Dollie has a bookmaker's diary in his pocket--and find the earliest date for dresses and so forth, and we'll get it over properly; but until then you must consider yourself still Ann Ingleside."

Dollie looked by no means cheerful as he searched for the diary.

"I'm afraid you're vexed with me?" he said to Sir Gaston.

"Not at all," was the reply. "I should have been, if you hadn't come to me to-day. But your mother and sisters ought to be."

"That's a cert," said Dollie.

"Yes, and there's someone who would have been even more furious than any of them," said Sir Gaston.

"Who?" Dollie asked.

"Your tailor. The idea of trying to evade destiny in this way! If ever there was a man born to be married in new clothes, it is you, and you sneak about London in tweeds trying to find a registrar base enough to be your accomplice. Now, Ann has never been dressy. For Ann it was all right. But you--my dear Dollie, never do anything so out of character again. It doesn't suit you. Go right off to Savile Row the first thing in the morning and arrange for the war-paint, and Ann, in her own more restricted way, will do the same. Meanwhile, I claim the custody of the ring."

The next evening I chanced to run across Dollie in St. James's Park as I was on my way to Queen Anne's Gate, and he had a smile that irradiated his honest countenance like the sun on the sea. He unfolded an evening paper, and although the breeze defeated his efforts several times, he pronounced no malediction. Evidently Mr. Adolphus Heathcote was in a good temper.

"Look here," he said, "here's a little bit of all right."

I followed the direction of his gloved finger and saw that a horse named Decree Nisi had won a race.

"Wait a bit," he said, moving his finger lower, and I saw that the starting price of Decree Nisi was 20 to 1.

"What do you think of that?" he asked. "Not bad odds?"

"Very good," I said.

"Well," he said, "what do you think I did? After the painful experiences of yesterday I took them as a tip, because, don't you see, I was, in a manner of speaking, jolly well divorced last evening, wasn't I? Very well. I added the cost of the wedding ring--three pounds ten, for it was a downright, solid affair, as I dare say you noticed--to the cost of the special licence, and put the whole boiling on Decree Nisi. And it romps in at 20 to 1. Never let me hear anyone talk about marriage being unlucky again. Wow, wow!"

CHAPTER THE LAST

IN WHICH FAREWELL IS SAID TO PRIMROSE TERRACE, AND THE EARTH FINDS A NEW AXIS

I write these final words in another house, not too far from Primrose Terrace and our dear Lacey and the Zoo; a house with its own garden. For Lavender could not flourish in the Misses Packers' restricted space, and Lavender is, of course, the principal person to consider. And since it is a house with a garden, and all our own, it follows (in London) that we have no neighbours, and therefore, not having neighbours any more to describe, there is nothing to do but to take my novelist friend's best piece of advice.

Finding the right house was as difficult as ever it is, and was attended by the usual rages as we gazed upon ideal residences already selfishly occupied by other persons; more difficult, indeed, since it was to be the theatre of the dramas of Lavender's infancy, childhood, girlhood, and young womanhood. No joke selecting an historic abode of this kind.

Yet here we are, on our first evening, and Lavender (whose home it so pre-eminently is) has just consented to fall asleep.

The house--but, excuse me, I feel certain I heard her cry.

THE END