But the twins did not enjoy the occasion at all, for the truth was that
they were not as they had been. Angelica was rapidly outstripping Diavolo,
as was inevitable at that age. He was still a boy, but she was verging on
womanhood, and already had thoughts which did not appeal to him, and moods
which he could not comprehend, the consequence being continual quarrels
between them,--those quarrels in which people are hottest and bitterest,
not because of their hate, but because of their love for each other. There
is such agony in misunderstanding and blame when all has hitherto been
comprehension, approval, and sympathy. The shadow of approaching maturity,
which would separate them inevitably for the next few years, already
touched Angelica perceptibly; and, although to the onlookers they seemed
to treat each other as usual, both children felt that there was something
wrong, and their discomfort was all the greater because neither of them
could account for the change. Angelica had been for some time in her most
hoydenish, least human stage, during which she had given up hugging
Diavolo, and taken to butting him in the stomach instead. But she was
growing beyond that now, and was in fact just on the borderland, hovering
between two states: in the one of which she was a child, all nonsense and
mischievous tricks; and in the other a girl with tender impulses and
yearning senses seeking some satisfaction.
She and Diavolo had promised themselves some fun at Edith's wedding, but
when the morning came Angelica was moody and irritable, and Diavolo
watched her and waited in vain for a suggestion. When they were in the
cathedral, during the ceremony, she had a strange feeling that there was
something in it ail that specially concerned her, and she looked at Edith
and listened to the service intently, in an involuntary effort to obtain
some clue to her own sensations.
Diavolo, who was all sympathy when there was anything really wrong with
her, became alarmed.
"Does your stomach ache?" he whispered. (They were kneeling side by side.)
"No!" she answered shortly.
"Oh, then, I suppose there is something _morally_ wrong," he
observed, in a satisfied tone, as if he knew from experience that that was
a small thing compared with the other complaint.
They sat together at the wedding breakfast, but Angelica continued
silently observant.
Diavolo had brought a big boiled shrimp in his pocket.
It was black and of great age, and he managed to fasten it adroitly on the
shoulder of the lady who sat next him, so that its long antenna tickled
her neck, and provoked her attention to it.
Glancing down sideways, and catching a glimpse of black eyes and many
legs, she thought it was some horrid creature with a sting, and jumped up,
shrieking wildly, to everybody's consternation.
Angelica declared it was a stupid trick.
"Well, you put me up to it yourself," Diavolo grumbled.
"Did I?" she snapped. "Then I was wrong."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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