Part 3 (1/2)

Winn behaved abominably. He took the youngest Fanshawe child and disappeared with him into the stable yard.

Even Charles and James behaved better than that. They hurled well-chosen incomprehensible jokes at the clergyman's daughters--dreadful girls who played hockey and had known the Staines all their lives--and these ladies returned their missiles with interest.

It caused a good deal of noise, but it sounded hearty.

Isabella, being a clergyman's wife, talked to the Dean, who soon looked more astonished than ever.

At last it was all comfortably over. Estelle, leaning on her father's arm in pale blue, kissed her mother. Mrs. Fanshawe looked at the end rather tactlessly cheerful. (She had cried throughout the ceremony, just when she had worn the mauve hat and Estelle had hoped she wouldn't.)

Mr. Fanshawe behaved much more suitably; he said to Winn with a trembling voice, ”Take care of my little girl,” and Winn, who might have said something graceful in reply, merely shook his father-in-law's hand with such force that Mr. Fanshawe, red with pain, hastily retreated.

Lionel Drummond was charming and much appreciated everywhere; he retrieved Winn from the stable yard when no one could guess where he was, and was the first person to call Estelle, Mrs. Staines; he wound up the affair with a white satin slipper.

When they drove off, Estelle turned toward Winn with s.h.i.+ning eyes and quivering lips. It was the moment for a judicious amount of love-making, and all Winn said was:

”Look here, you know, those high-heeled things on your feet are absolutely murderous. They might give you a bad tumble. Don't let me see you in 'em again. Are you sure you're quite comfortable, and all that?”

He made the same absurd fuss about Estelle's comfort in the railway carriage; but it was one of the last occasions on which he did it, because he discovered almost immediately that however many things you could think of for Estelle's comfort, she could think of more for herself, and no matter how much care or attention was lavished upon her, it could never quite equal her unerring instinct for her own requirements.

After this he was prepared to be ardent, but Estelle didn't care for ardor in a railway train, so she soon stopped it. One of the funny things she discovered about Winn was that it was the easiest possible thing to stop his ardor, and this was really odd, because it was not from lack of strength in his emotion. She never quite discovered what it did come from, because it didn't occur to her that Winn would very much rather have died than offend or tire the woman he loved.

She thought that Winn was rather coa.r.s.e, but he wasn't as coa.r.s.e as that!

Estelle had a great deal that she wanted to talk over about the wedding.

The whole occasion flamed out at her--a perfect project, perfectly carried out. She explained to Winn at length who everybody was and how there had been some people there who had had to be taken down, and others who had had to be pushed forward, and her mother explained to, and her father checked, and the children (it was too dreadful how they'd let Bobby run after Winn), kept as much out of the way as possible.

Winn listened hard and tried to follow intelligently all the family histories she evolved for him. At last after a rather prolonged pause on his part, just at a point when he should have expressed admiration of her guidance of a delicate affair, Estelle glanced at him and discovered that he was asleep! They hadn't been married for three hours, and he could go to sleep in the middle of their first real talk! She was sure Lionel Drummond wouldn't have done any such thing. But Winn was old--he was thirty-five--and she could see quite plainly now that the hair round the tops of his ears was gray. She looked at him scornfully, but he didn't wake up.

When he woke up he laughed.

”By Jove!” he exclaimed, ”I believe I've been to sleep!” but he didn't apologize. He began instead to tell her some things that might interest her, about what Drummond, his best man, and he, had done in Manchuria, just as if nothing had happened; but naturally Estelle wouldn't be interested. She was first polite, then bored, then captious. Winn looked at her rather hard. ”Are you trying to pay me back for falling asleep?”

he asked with a queer little laugh. ”Is that what you're up to?” Estelle stiffened.

”Certainly not,” she said. ”I simply wasn't very interested. I don't think I like Chinese stories, and Manchuria is just the same, of course.”

Winn leaned over her, with a wicked light in his eyes, like a naughty school boy. ”Own up!” he said, laying his rough hand very gently on her shoulder. ”Own up, old lady!”

But has anybody ever owned up when they were being spiteful?

Estelle didn't. She looked at Winn's hand till he withdrew it, and then she remarked that she was feeling faint from want of food.

After she had had seven chicken sandwiches, pate de foie gras, half a melon, and some champagne, she began to be agreeable.

Winn was delighted at this change in her and quite inclined to think that their little ”breeze” had been entirely due to his own awkwardness.

Still, he wished she had owned up.

CHAPTER V