ng
was upon him. His superiority to these his fellow-members soothed him.
He saw through all the sham of this club life, the meanness of this
worship of success, the sham of kid-gloved novelists, "good form," and
the terrific decency of our education. It was soothing thus to see
through things, soothing thus to be superior; and from the soft recesses
of his chair he puffed out smoke and stretched his limbs toward the fire;
and the fire burned back at him with a discreet and venerable glow.

CHAPTER VIII

THE WEDDING

Puncutal to his word, Bill Dennant called for Shelton at one o'clock.

"I bet old Benjy's feeling a bit cheap," said he, as they got out of
their cab at the church door and passed between the crowded files of
unelect, whose eyes, so curious and pitiful, devoured them from the
pavement.

The ashen face of a woman, with a baby in her arms and two more by her
side, looked as eager as if she had never experienced the pangs of ragged
matrimony. Shelton went in inexplicably uneasy; the price of his tie was
their board and lodging for a week. He followed his future
brother-in-law to a pew on the bridegroom's side, for, with intuitive
perception of the sexes' endless warfare, each of the opposing parties to
this contract had its serried battalion, the arrows of whose suspicion
kept glancing across and across the central aisle.

Bill Dennant's eyes began to twinkle.

"There's old Benjy!" he whispered; and Shelton looked at the hero of the
day. A subdued pallor was traceable under the weathered uniformity of
his shaven face; but the well-bred, artificial smile he bent upon the
guests had its wonted steely suavity. About his dress and his neat
figure was that studied ease which lifts men from the ruck of common
bridegrooms. There were no holes in his armour through which the
impertinent might pry.

"Good old Benjy!" whispered young Dennant; "I say, they look a bit short
of class, those Casserols."

Shelton, who was acquainted with this family, smiled. The sensuous
sanctity all round had begun to influence him. A perfume of flowers and
dresses fought with the natural odour of the church; the rustle of
whisperings and skirts struck through the native silence of the aisles,
and Shelton idly fixed his eyes on a lady in the pew in front; without in
the least desiring to make a speculation of this sort, he wondered
whether her face was as charming as the lines of her back in their
delicate, skin-