, Haymans, Tweetymans, sat in the
left aisle; Monts, Charwells; Muskhams in the right; while a sprinkling
of Fleur's fellow-sufferers at school, and of Mont's fellow-sufferers in,
the War, gaped indiscriminately from either side, and three maiden
ladies, who had dropped in on their way from Skyward's brought up the
rear, together with two Mont retainers and Fleur's old nurse. In the
unsettled state of the country as full a house as could be expected.

Mrs. Val Dartie, who sat with her husband in the third row, squeezed his
hand more than once during the performance. To her, who knew the plot of
this tragi-comedy, its most dramatic moment was well-nigh painful. 'I
wonder if Jon knows by instinct,' she thought--Jon, out in British
Columbia. She had received a letter from him only that morning which had
made her smile and say:

"Jon's in British Columbia, Val, because he wants to be in California.
He thinks it's too nice there."

"Oh!" said Val, "so he's beginning to see a joke again."

"He's bought some land and sent for his mother."

"What on earth will she do out there?"

"All she cares about is Jon. Do you still think it a happy release?"

Val's shrewd eyes narrowed to grey pin-points between their dark lashes.

"Fleur wouldn't have suited him a bit. She's not bred right."

"Poor little Fleur!" sighed Holly. Ah! it was strange--this marriage.
The young man, Mont, had caught her on the rebound, of course, in the
reckless mood of one whose ship has just gone down. Such a plunge could
not but be--as Val put it--an outside chance. There was little to be told
from the back view of her young cousin's veil, and Holly's eyes reviewed
the general aspect of this Christian wedding. She, who had made a
love-match which had been successful, had a horror of unhappy marriages.
This might not be one in the end--but it was clearly a toss-up; and to
consecrate a toss-up in this fashion with manufactured unction before a
crowd of fashionable free-thinkers--for who thought otherwise than
freely, or not at all, when they were "dolled" up--seemed to her as near
a sin as one could find in an age which had abolished them. Her eyes
wandered from the prelate in his robes (a Charwell-the Forsytes had not
as yet produced a prelate) to Val, beside her, thinking--she was
certain--of the Mayfly filly at fifteen to one for the Cambridgeshire.
They passed on and caught the profile of the ninth baronet, in
counterfeitment of the kneel