There was a stir in the front of the church, a clergyman in white vestment advanced; and, at a sudden murmurous interest, a twisting of heads, the wedding procession moved slowly up the aisle.  The ushers, painstakingly adopting various lengths of stride to the requirements of the organ, passed in pairs; then followed an equal number of young women, among whom he instantly recognized the handsome presence of Kate Polder, in drooping blue bonnets, with prodigious panniers of celestial-hued silk, carrying white enamelled shepherd’s crooks from which depended loops of artificial buttercups.  An open space ensued, in the centre of which advanced a child with starched white skirts springing out in a lacy wheel about spare, bare knees, her pale yellow hair tied in an overwhelming blue bow; and holding outstretched, in a species of intense and quivering agony, a white velvet cushion to which were pinned two gold wedding bands.

After that, Howat Penny thought, the prospective bride could furnish only the diminished spectacle of an anti-climax.  Led by the virginal presence of Isabella Polder she floated forward in a foam of white tulle and dragging satin attached below her bare, full shoulders.  A floating veil, pinned with a wreath of orange blossoms, manifestly wax, covered the metallic gold of her hair.  Her countenance was unperturbed, statuesque, and pink.  As the sentimental clamour of the organ died the steam pipes took up, with renewed vigour, their utilitarian noise.  “Why don’t they turn them off?” Mariana exclaimed in his ear.  Personally he enjoyed such an accompaniment to what he designated as the performance.

He cast the participants in their inevitable roles—­the bride as prima donna, James Polder the heroic tenor.  Mrs. Corinne de Barry, a thin, concerned figure in glistening lavender, supported a lamenting mezzo, the bulky, masculine figure at her side, with an imposing diamond on a hand like two bricks, was beautifully basso—­

His train of thought was abruptly upset by James Polder’s familiar, staccato utterance.  The precipitant young man!  It stamped out all Howat Penny’s humorous condescension; his sensitive ear was conscious of a note, almost, of desperation.  He avoided looking at Mariana.  Damn it, the thing unexpectedly cut at him like a knife.  James Polder said, “I will.”  The clear, studied tones of Harriet de Barry, understudy to Vivian Blane, were spoiled by the crackling of steam.  Howat moved uneasily; he had an absurd sense of guilt; he hated the whole proceeding.  What was that Polder, whose voice persisted so darkly in his hearing, about, getting himself into such a snarl?  He recalled what the younger had said on his porch—­“women with better hearts.”  He had implored him, Howat Penny, to be “more human.”  The memory, too, of the shaken tone of that request bothered him.  Now it appeared that he might have been, well, more human.  He composed himself, facing such sentimental illusions, into a savage indifference