American fiction -- 20th century; Divorce -- Fiction; Married people -- Fiction; Rich people -- Fiction
Constance went on her way with winged feet. She felt uplifted by the
interview. Her starved senses had been refreshed, and her imagination
imbued with a new outlook on life, which though foreign, if not
inimical, to some of her past associations, she already perceived to be
vital and stimulating.
XI
Three months later, on a rare day in early June, Miss Lucille Wilson
was made Mrs. Clarence Waldo, in the presence of a fashionable company.
Journalistic social tittle-tattle had engendered such lively public
interest that the neighborhood of St. Stephen's was beset by a throng
of sight-seers--chiefly random women--who for two hours previous to the
ceremony occupied the adjacent sidewalks and every spot which would
command a glimpse of the bride and guests. A force of policemen
guarded the church against the incursion of the multitude. Yet perhaps
the patient waiters felt rewarded for their pains, inasmuch as the
heroine of the occasion, after alighting from her carriage, stood for
an instant at the entrance to the canopy before proceeding, as though
she were willing to give the world a brief opportunity to behold her
loveliness and grandeur. For those with pocket cameras there was time
enough for a snap-shot before she was lost to sight.
Within the church were gay silks and nodding bonnet plumes and imposing
formalities. Six maids, each wearing as a memento an exquisite locket
encrusted with diamonds, and six ushers with scarf-pins of a pearl set
in a circle of tiny rubies, escorted the bride to the altar, where the
Rev. Mr. Prentiss and two assistant priests were in attendance. When
the happy pair had been made man and wife a choir of expensive voices
chanted melodiously "O Perfect Love," and the procession streamed down
the aisle on its way to the wedding-breakfast. This was served by a
New York caterer on little tables with all the gorgeous nicety of which
he was capable. Though June is a month when most delicious things are
to be had, an effort had evidently been made to procure delicacies
which were not in season. The effect of a jam of guests elbowing for
their food, as is usual on such occasions, would have lacerated Mrs.
Wilson's sensibilities. Her house was large, so she had been able to
invite her entire social acquaintance without crowding her rooms, and
her instructions had been that there should be numerous deft waiters in
order that each guest might come under the benign influence of personal
supervision. Accordingly everyone was pleased and in good spirits
unless it were the bridegroom, and the doubt in his case was suggested
only by the impassiveness of his countenance at a time when it should
properly have been the mirror of his heart's joy. Perhaps he had not
fully recovered from the farewell dinner given him by his stag friends,
as newspaper women are apt to designate a bachelor's intimates, where
he had seen fit to express his emotion by drinking champagne to the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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