hey speculated about
the relative ages and fortunes of the bride and bridegroom. The
chancel was filled with a vested choir which, singing and carrying a
cross, advanced down the aisle to meet the bridal party. Molly, who
had not been in a church since her childhood, had needed to be coached
over and over again in the ins and outs of the complicated service.

Sylvia, seated several guests away from the aisle, saw little of the
procession as it went up into the chancel. She caught a glimpse of a
misty mass of white and, beside it, old Mr. Sommerville's profile,
very white and nervous and determined. She did not at that time see
the bridegroom at all. The ceremony, which took place far within the
chancel, was long and interspersed with music from the choir. Sylvia,
feeling very queer and callous, as though, under an anaesthetic, she
were watching with entire unconcern the amputation of one of her
limbs, fell to observing the people about her. The woman in front of
her leaned against the pew and brought her broad, well-fed back close
under Sylvia's eyes. It was covered with as many layers as a worm in
a cocoon. There were beads on lace, the lace incrusted on other lace,
chiffon, fish-net, a dimly seen filmy satin, cut in points, and, lower
down, an invisible foundation of taffeta. Through the interstices
there gleamed a revelation of the back itself, fat, white, again like
a worm in a cocoon.

Sylvia began to plan out a comparison of dress with architecture,
bringing out the insistent tendency in both to the rococo, to the
burying of structural lines in ornamentation. The cuff, for instance,
originally intended to protect the skin from contact with unwashable
fabrics, degenerated into a mere bit of "trimming," which has lost all
its meaning, which may be set anywhere on the sleeve. Like a strong
hand about her throat came the knowledge that she was planning to say
all this to please Felix Morrison, who was now within fifty feet of
her, being married to another woman.

She flamed to fever and chilled again to her queer absence of
spirit.... There was a chorister at the end of the line near her, a
pale young man with a spiritual face who chanted his part with shining
rapt eyes. While he sang he slipped his hand under his white surplice
and took out his watch. Still singing "Glory be to the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost," he cast a hasty eye on the watch and frowned
impatiently. He was evidently afraid the business i