The wedding was quite the prettiest function of the season. The eight bridesmaids walked in moss-green _crêpe de Chine_ veiled with silver-spotted chiffon. On their heads were skull-caps of silver tissue, each having a thirty-inch-high aigrette supported by a thin _bandeau_ of gold, set with crystals and olivines, the gift of the bride.... Their stockings were of white lace openwork, the left knee of each being clasped by the bridegroom’s souvenir, a garter of gold, crystal, and olivines. Silver slippers with four-inch heels completed the ravishing effect. _O Perfect Love!_ was sung before the Bishop’s Address, and the ceremony concluded with _The Voice that Breathed_ and Stainer’s _Sevenfold Amen_. The bridal-party passed down the nave to the strains of the Wedding Chorus from _Lohengrin_. And there was a reception at the Werkeley Square house of one of the dearest of Margot’s innumerable dearest friends, and the happy pair left in their beautiful brand-new Winston-Beeston touring car _en route_ for the old red-brick Hall in Devonshire. Decidedly the honeymoon might have been termed ideal—and four subsequent months of married life proved tolerably cloudless—until Fate sent a stinging hailstorm to strip the roses from the bridal bower. An unexpected, appalling, inevitable discovery was made in Paris in the _Grande Semaine_, at the end of the loveliest of June seasons. It utterly ruined—for two people—the Day of the Grand Prix, that marks the climax of the Big Week, when the Parisian coaching-world tools its four-in-hands to Longchamps Racecourse, and the smartest, richest, and gayest people, mustered from every capital of Europe, parade under the chestnut-trees that shade the sunny paddock, to display or criticise the creations of the greatest _couturiers_. Margot had put on an astonishing gown for the occasion.... You will recall that the summer dress designs of 1914 _were_ astonishing; the autumn modes promised to be even more so, according to Babin, Touchet, and the Brothers Paillôt. Skirts—already as short and as narrow as possible—were to be even narrower; the Alpha and Omega of perfection would be represented by the Amphora Silhouette. And Margot, revolving before her cheval-glass in a sheath of jonquil-coloured silk _lisse_, embroidered with blue-and-green beetle-wings, found—to her horror and consternation—— Shall one phrase it that Dame Nature, intent upon her essential, unfashionable business of reproduction, was at variance with Madame Fashion _re_ the Amphora Silhouette? The slender shape was not yet spoilt, but long before the autumn came, no art would mask the wealthy curves of its maternity. *CHAPTER II* *DAME NATURE INTERVENES*