The Guardsmen, being on the platform side, alighted first, and on going
off they bowed to Glory with rather more than easy manners. A dash of
the devil prompted her to respond demonstratively, but John had
risen and was taking off his hat to the men, and they were going away
discomfited. Glory was proud of him--he was a man and a gentleman.
He put her into a hansom under the lamps outside the station, and her
face was lit up, but she patted the dog and said: “You have vexed me and
you needn't come to see me again. I shall not sing properly this evening
or sleep tonight at all, if that is any satisfaction to you, so you
needn't trouble to inquire.”
* * * * *
When he reached home Mrs. Callender told him of a shocking occurrence at
the fashionable wedding at All Saints' that morning. A young woman had
committed suicide during the ceremony, and it turned out to be the poor
girl who had been dismissed from the hospital.
John Storm remembered Brother Paul. “I must bury her,” he thought.
V.
Glory sang that night with extraordinary vivacity and charm and was
called back again and again. Going home in the cab she tried to live
through the day afresh--every step, every act, every word, down to that
triumphant “_I_ will.” Her thoughts swayed as with the swaying of the
hansom, but sometimes the thunderous applause of the audience broke in,
and then she had to remember where she had left off. She could feel that
beating against her breast still, and even smell the violets that grew
by the pool. He had told her to give up everything, and there was
an exquisite thrill in the thought that perhaps some day she would
annihilate herself and all her ambitions, and--who knows what then?
This mood lasted until Monday morning, when she was sitting in her
room, dressing very slowly and smiling at herself in the glass, when the
Cockney maid came in with a newspaper which her master had sent up on
account of its long report of the wedding.
“The Church of All Saints' was crowded by a fashionable congregation,
among whom were many notable persons in the world of politics and
society, including the father of the bridegroom, the Duke of ---- and
his brother, the Marquis of ----. An arch of palms crossed the nave at
the entrance to the chancel, and festoons of rare flowers were suspended
from the rails of the handsome screen. The altar and the table of the
commandments were almost obscured by the wreaths of exotics that hung
over them, and the columns of the colonnade, the font and offertory
boxes were similarly buried in rich and lovely blossom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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