People told him he was looking well, and congratulated him on his bride. Some said he was stouter than when he left the country, and some said he was thinner. They asked him questions about relatives and friends living and dead, and he ran constant risk of getting into hopeless difficulties. His only safety was in smiling, and saying very little; seeming not to hear some questions, and answering others with another question. It was not so hard after he got started, because there were so many people, and they kept coming close upon one another, so no one had much time to talk. Then supper with its formalities was got through with somehow, though to Gordon, with his already satisfied appetite and his hampering mustache, it seemed an endless ordeal. “Jeff,” as they all called him, was everywhere, attending to everything, and he slipped up to the unwilling bridegroom just as he was having to answer a very difficult question about the lateness of his vessel, and the kind of passage they had experienced in crossing. By this time Gordon had discovered that he was supposed to have been ten years abroad, and his steamer had been late in landing, but where he came from or what he had been doing over there were still to be found out; and it was extremely puzzling to be asked from what port he had sailed, and how he came to be there when he had been supposed to have been in St. Petersburg but the week before? His state of mind was anything but enviable. Besides all this, Gordon was just reflecting that the last he had seen of his hat and coat was in the church. What had become of them, and how could he go to the station without a hat? Then opportunely “Jeff” arrived. “Your train leaves at ten three,” he said in a low, business-like tone, as if he enjoyed the importance of having made all the arrangements. “I’ve secured the stateroom as you cabled me to do, and here are the tickets and checks. The trunks are down there all checked. Celia didn’t want any nonsense about their being tied up with white ribbon. She hates all that. We’ve arranged for you to slip out by the fire-escape and down through the back yard of the next neighbor, where a motor, just a plain regular one from the station, will be waiting around the corner in the shadow. Celia knows where it is. None of the party will know you are gone until you are well under way. The car they think you will take is being elaborately adorned with white at the front door now, but you won’t have any trouble about it. I’ve fixed everything up. Your coat and hat are out on the fire-escape, and as soon as Celia’s ready I’ll show you the way.”