Led by the virginal
presence of Isabella Polder she floated forward in a foam of white tulle
and dragging satin attached below her bare, full shoulders. A floating
veil, pinned with a wreath of orange blossoms, manifestly wax, covered
the metallic gold of her hair. Her countenance was unperturbed,
statuesque, and pink. As the sentimental clamour of the organ died the
steam pipes took up, with renewed vigour, their utilitarian noise. "Why
don't they turn them off?" Mariana exclaimed in his ear. Personally he
enjoyed such an accompaniment to what he designated as the performance.

He cast the participants in their inevitable roles--the bride as prima
donna, James Polder the heroic tenor. Mrs. Corinne de Barry, a thin,
concerned figure in glistening lavender, supported a lamenting mezzo,
the bulky, masculine figure at her side, with an imposing diamond on a
hand like two bricks, was beautifully basso--

His train of thought was abruptly upset by James Polder's familiar,
staccato utterance. The precipitant young man! It stamped out all Howat
Penny's humorous condescension; his sensitive ear was conscious of a
note, almost, of desperation. He avoided looking at Mariana. Damn it,
the thing unexpectedly cut at him like a knife. James Polder said, "I
will." The clear, studied tones of Harriet de Barry, understudy to
Vivian Blane, were spoiled by the crackling of steam. Howat moved
uneasily; he had an absurd sense of guilt; he hated the whole
proceeding. What was that Polder, whose voice persisted so darkly in his
hearing, about, getting himself into such a snarl? He recalled what the
younger had said on his porch--"women with better hearts." He had
implored him, Howat Penny, to be "more human." The memory, too, of the
shaken tone of that request bothered him. Now it appeared that he might
have been, well, more human. He composed himself, facing such
sentimental illusions, into a savage indifference to what remained of
the ceremony; he ignored the passage of Polder, with Harriet Polder on
his arm; the relief of the unspeakable child carrying the white velvet
cushion no longer in the manner of a hot plate; the united bridesmaids
and ushers. "Thank heaven, that's over!" he ejaculated in the
deeply-comfortable space of the Jannan's motor laundalet. "But it
isn't," Mariana said briefly. She sat silent, with her head turned from
him, through the remainder of the short drive about Rittenhouse Square.
Then she went abruptly to her roo