ontesting with the rattle of the steam pipes. Howat
Penny was detached, critical. Mariana, in a dull, black satin wrap of
innumerable soft folds and wide paisley collar slipping from a
sheath-like bodice of gleaming, cut steel beading, was silent,
incurious. He turned to her, to point out an extravagant figure, but he
said nothing. She was, evidently, in no mood for the enjoyment of the
ridiculous. This disturbed him; he had not thought that she would be
so--so concerned. He suppressed an impatient exclamation, and returned
to the scrutiny of the culminating ceremony.

Here was a sphere, vastly larger than his own, to the habits and
prejudices of which he was complete stranger. It was as James Polder had
said--as if one or the other spoke Patagonian. He had no wish to acquire
the language about him; a positive antagonism to his surrounding
possessed him, beyond reason. He thought--how different Mariana is from
all this, and was annoyed again at her serious bearing. Then he was
surprised by his presence there at all; confound the girl, why didn't
she play with her own kind! Yet only the other day the glimpse she had
given him of her natural associates had filled him with dread. His mind,
striving to encompass the problem of Mariana's existence, failed to
overcome the walls built about him by time, by habit. He gave it up. The
louder pealing of the organ announced immediate developments.

There was a stir in the front of the church, a clergyman in white
vestment advanced; and, at a sudden murmurous interest, a twisting of
heads, the wedding procession moved slowly up the aisle. The ushers,
painstakingly adopting various lengths of stride to the requirements of
the organ, passed in pairs; then followed an equal number of young
women, among whom he instantly recognized the handsome presence of Kate
Polder, in drooping blue bonnets, with prodigious panniers of
celestial-hued silk, carrying white enamelled shepherd's crooks from
which depended loops of artificial buttercups. An open space ensued, in
the centre of which advanced a child with starched white skirts
springing out in a lacy wheel about spare, bare knees, her pale yellow
hair tied in an overwhelming blue bow; and holding outstretched, in a
species of intense and quivering agony, a white velvet cushion to which
were pinned two gold wedding bands.

After that, Howat Penny thought, the prospective bride could furnish
only the diminished spectacle of an anti-climax.