tre applauding to madness; scenes not outlined
clear and projected in space, but which were to him shapeless
silhouettes and dazzling formless patches of light flitting across the
extreme background of his consciousness.
* * * * *
About mid-day Morgan Druce and Selina Mary Kettering were united in
holy matrimony. She had given her true name for the occasion, but
Morgan, intent on signing his own, scarcely noticed hers. She was Cleo
to him, and Cleo she would remain. It was not till about an hour
later, when they were lunching at a West End restaurant, that his mind
began to play about the fact that he really was married now. Yet it
seemed incredible. For him marriage had always connoted something
large and elaborate, a substantial experience with which were involved
complicated preliminaries, a process so transforming that one almost
expected one's very chemical composition to be changed by it.
But all had been so astonishingly simple. The whole morning had been
singularly like other mornings. The visit to the registrar's office
had been short and unimpressive. His bone and tissue were perfectly
unaffected by it. Cleo and he had lunched here before. How then was
his relation to her so different from what it had been?
He argued with himself. He told himself he _was_ married, but he
refused to believe it. With all his knowledge and certainty of the
fact, he failed to convince himself. And yet that certainty set him
speculating as to what his father and mother would say when they read
the curt announcement he intended dispatching that afternoon. He
wondered what Helen would think, what Margaret. The fragrance and
beauty of the lily seemed suddenly to invade his spirit. He had a
sense of sweetness and light, followed by a reaction of pain. Perhaps
Margaret would be crushed by the news; perhaps--and he could not help
the thought, grotesque though it was--she would marry that smooth,
eye-glassed young man.
There was a strange ringing in his ears; he was conscious of his whole
being soaring far away, a floating, palpitating spirit amid great
spaces of mystery and dream. A universal music was swelling around
him, a mighty concerto bursting full upon him from the stillness of
infinite distances--the sobbing of violins, the blare of brazen
instruments, an orchestral clash and clang.
"You may smoke," said Cleo.
With a start he found himself amid the garish mirrors of the gilded
resta
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