Now I go round it all, look into its details,
generalise about its aspects. I'm interested, for example, to square it
with my Bladesover theory of the British social scheme. Under stress of
tradition we were all of us trying in the fermenting chaos of London to
carry out the marriage ceremonies of a Bladesover tenant or one of the
chubby middling sort of people in some dependent country town. There
a marriage is a public function with a public significance. There the
church is to a large extent the gathering-place of the community, and
your going to be married a thing of importance to every one you pass on
the road. It is a change of status that quite legitimately interests
the whole neighbourhood. But in London there are no neighbours, nobody
knows, nobody cares. An absolute stranger in an office took my notice,
and our banns were proclaimed to ears that had never previously heard
our names. The clergyman, even, who married us had never seen us before,
and didn't in any degree intimate that he wanted to see us again.

Neighbours in London! The Ramboats did not know the names of the people
on either side of them. As I waited for Marion before we started off
upon our honeymoon flight, Mr. Ramboat, I remember, came and stood
beside me and stared out of the window.

"There was a funeral over there yesterday," he said, by way of making
conversation, and moved his head at the house opposite. "Quite a smart
affair it was with a glass 'earse...."

And our little procession of three carriages with white-favour-adorned
horses and drivers, went through all the huge, noisy, indifferent
traffic like a lost china image in the coal-chute of an ironclad. Nobody
made way for us, nobody cared for us; the driver of an omnibus jeered;
for a long time we crawled behind an unamiable dust-cart. The irrelevant
clatter and tumult gave a queer flavour of indecency to this public
coming together of lovers. We seemed to have obtruded ourselves
shamelessly. The crowd that gathered outside the church would have
gathered in the same spirit and with greater alacrity for a street
accident....

At Charing Cross--we were going to Hastings--the experienced eye of the
guard detected the significance of our unusual costume and he secured us
a compartment.

"Well," said I, as the train moved out of the station, "That's all
over!" And I turned to Marion--a little unfamiliar still, in her
unfamiliar clothes--and smiled.

She regarded me gravely, timid