From this point on it seemed to Richard more or less like a rapidly shifting series of pictures, all wonderfully coloured.  The first was that of the electric light of the big car’s interior shining on the faces of Uncle Rufus and Aunt Ruth, on Mr. Kendrick and Hugh Benson—­the latter a little pale but quite composed.  Hugh had owned that he felt seriously inadequate for the role which was his to-night, being no society man and unaccustomed to taking conspicuous parts anywhere but in business.  But Richard had assured him that it was all a very simple matter, since it was just a question of standing by a friend in the crisis of his life!  And Hugh had responded that it would be a pity indeed if he were unwilling to do that.

The next picture was that of the wide hall at the Gray home—­as he came into it a vivid memory flashed over Richard of his first entrance there—­less honoured than to-night!  Soft lights shone upon him; the spicy fragrance of the ropes and banks of Christmas “greens,” bright with holly, saluted his nostrils; and the glimpse of a great fire burning, quite as usual, on the broad hearth of the living-room—­a place which had long since come to typify his ideal of a home—­served to make him feel that there could be no spot more suitable for the beginning of a new home, because there could be nothing in the world finer or more beautiful to model it upon.

Nothing seemed afterward clear in his memory until the moment when he came from his room upstairs, with Hugh close behind him, and met the rector of St. Luke’s, who was to marry him.  There followed a hazy impression of a descent of the staircase, of coming from a detour through the library out into the full lights and of standing interminably facing a large gathering of people, the only face at which he could venture to glance that of Judge Calvin.  Gray, standing dignified and stately beside another figure of equal dignity and stateliness—­probably that of Mr. Matthew Kendrick.  Then, at last—­there was Roberta, coming toward him down a silken lane, her eyes fixed on his—­such eyes, in such a face!  He fixed his own gaze upon it, and held it—­and forgot everything else, as he had hoped he should.  Then there were the grave words of the clergyman, and his own voice responding—­and sounding curiously unlike his own, of course, as the voice of the bridegroom has sounded in his own ears since time began.  Then Roberta’s—­how clearly she spoke, bless her!  Then, before he knew it, it was done, and he and she were rising from their knees, and there were smiles and pleasant murmurings all about them—­and little Ruth was sobbing softly with her cheek against his!