aid coolly, "I'll marry
your son when you like, Mrs. Yaverland."

The other said nothing more than "Thank you." Realising that she had
said it even more than usually indifferently, she put out her hand
towards Ellen in imitation of the girl's own movement, but did it with
so marked a lack of spontaneity that it must, as she instantly
perceived, give an impression of insincerity. "How I fail!" she thought,
but not too sadly, for at any rate she had got her son what he wanted. A
man came and stood a little way behind her, looking here and there for
someone whom he expected to find in the assembly, and she turned sharply
to see if it were Richard; for always when he was away, if the shadows
fell across her path or there came a knock at the door, she hoped that
it was him.

"I am stupid about him," she admitted, settling down in her chair, "but
if he had come it would have been lovely. What would he think if he came
now and found us two whom he loves most sitting here silent, almost
sulky, because we have fixed the time of his marriage? He would not
understand, of course. When a man is in love marriage loses all
importance. He thinks that he could wait for ever. He never realises, as
women do, that it is not love that matters but what we do with it. Why
do I say as women do? Only women like me who have through making all
possible mistakes found out the truth by the process of elimination.
This girl is as unprovident as Richard is. So unprovident that I am
afraid she is angry with me for insisting that she should put her
capital of passion to good uses." And indeed Ellen was sitting there
very stiffly, turning her hands together and looking down on them as if
she despised them for their cantrips. She wished her marriage had not
been decided quite like this. Of course she wanted to be married,
because, whatever the marriage-laws were like, there was no other way by
which she and Richard could tell everybody what they were to each other.
But she had wanted the ceremony as secret as possible, as little
overlooked by any other human being, and she fancifully desired it to
take place in some high mountain chapel where there was no congregation
but casqued marble men and the faith professed was so mystical that the
priest was as inhuman as a prayer. Thus their vows would, though
recorded, have had the sweet quality of unwritten melodies that are sung
only for the beloved who has inspired them. But now this marriage was to
be per