one; it could not
rush recklessly to a goal nor see the goal clearly when pain intervened.
It was not now actual pain or doubt it had to meet, but it was that mist
of confusion, wonder, and wistfulness; it needed to be dispersed, and
Gerald, she felt sure, would disperse it. Gerald, after a questioning
lift of his eyebrows, acquiesced very cheerfully in the postponement.
After all, they really didn't know each other very well; they would
shake down into each other's ways all the more quickly, after marriage,
for the wisdom gained by a longer engagement. He expressed these
reasonable resignations to Althea, who smiled a little wanly over them.

She was now involved in the rush of new impressions. They were very
crowded. She was to have but a fortnight of London and then, accompanied
by Mrs. Peel and Sally, to go to Merriston for another fortnight or so
before coming back to London for final preparations. Gerald was to be at
Merriston for part of the time, and Miss Harriet Robinson was coming
over from Paris to sustain and guide her through the last throes of her
trousseau. Already every post brought solemn letters from Miss Robinson
filled with detailed questionings as to the ordering of _lingerie_. So
it was really in this fortnight of London that she must gain her
clearest impression of what her new environment was to be; there would
be no time later on.

There were two groups of impressions that she felt herself, rather
breathlessly, observing; one group was made by Helen and Franklin and
herself, and one by Gerald's friends and relatives, with Gerald himself
as a bright though uncertain centre to it.

Gerald's friends and relations were all very nice to her and all very
charming people. She had never, she thought, met so many people at once
to whom the term might be applied. Their way of dressing, their way of
talking, their way of taking you, themselves, and everything so easily,
seemed as nearly perfect, as an example of human achievement, as could
well be. Life passed among them would assuredly be a life of gliding
along a sunny, unruffled stream. If there were dark things or troubled
things to deal with, they were kept well below the shining surface; on
the surface one always glided. It was charming, indeed, and yet Althea
looked a little dizzily from side to side, as if at familiar but
unattainable shores, and wondered if some solid foothold on solid earth
were not preferable. She wondered if she would not ra