Lulu hardly heard her.  Mrs. Bett was incalculably distant.

“You sure?” Lulu said low to Ninian.

For the first time, something in her exceeding isolation really touched him.

“Say,” he said, “you come on with me.  We’ll have it done over again somewhere, if you say so.”

“Oh,” said Lulu, “if I thought—­”

He leaned and patted her hand.

“Good girl,” he said.

They sat silent, Ninian padding on the cloth with the flat of his plump hands.

Dwight returned.  “It’s a go all right,” he said.  He sat down, laughed weakly, rubbed at his face.  “You two are tied as tight as the church could tie you.”

“Good enough,” said Ninian.  “Eh, Lulu?”

“It’s—­it’s all right, I guess,” Lulu said.

“Well, I’ll be dished,” said Dwight.

“Sister!” said Ina.

Ninian meditated, his lips set tight and high.  It is impossible to trace the processes of this man.  Perhaps they were all compact of the devil-may-care attitude engendered in any persistent traveller.  Perhaps the incomparable cookery of Lulu played its part.

“I was going to make a trip south this month,” he said, “on my way home from here.  Suppose we get married again by somebody or other, and start right off.  You’d like that, wouldn’t you—­going South?”

“Yes,” said Lulu only.

“It’s July,” said Ina, with her sense of fitness, but no one heard.

It was arranged that their trunks should follow them—­Ina would see to that, though she was scandalised that they were not first to return to Warbleton for the blessing of Mrs. Bett.

“Mamma won’t mind,” said Lulu.  “Mamma can’t stand a fuss any more.”

They left the table.  The men and women still sitting at the other tables saw nothing unusual about these four, indifferently dressed, indifferently conditioned.  The hotel orchestra, playing ragtime in deafening concord, made Lulu’s wedding march.

* * * * *

It was still early next day—­a hot Sunday—­when Ina and Dwight reached home.  Mrs. Bett was standing on the porch.

“Where’s Lulie?” asked Mrs. Bett.

They told.

Mrs. Bett took it in, a bit at a time.  Her pale eyes searched their faces, she shook her head, heard it again, grasped it.  Her first question was: 

“Who’s going to do your work?”

Ina had thought of that, and this was manifest.

“Oh,” she said, “you and I’ll have to manage.”

Mrs. Bett meditated, frowning.

“I left the bacon for her to cook for your breakfasts,” she said.  “I can’t cook bacon fit to eat.  Neither can you.”

“We’ve had our breakfasts,” Ina escaped from this dilemma.

“Had it up in the city, on expense?”

“Well, we didn’t have much.”

In Mrs. Bett’s eyes tears gathered, but they were not for Lulu.