It needed neither comb nor any ornament.
Mary had dressed, for Rowcliffe was coming to dinner. Such a thing had
never been heard of at the Vicarage; but it had come to pass. And as
Mary thought of how she had accomplished it, she wondered what Alice
could possibly have meant when she said to her "There are moments when
I hate you," as she hooked her up the back.
For it never could have happened if she had not persuaded the Vicar
(and herself as well) that she was asking Rowcliffe on Alice's
account.
The Vicar had come gradually to see that if Alice must be married she
had better marry Rowcliffe and have done with it. He had got used to
Rowcliffe and he rather liked him; so he had only held out against
the idea for a fortnight or so. He had even found a certain austere
satisfaction in the thought that he, the doctor, who had tried to
terrify him about Ally's insanity, having thrown that bomb into
the peaceful Vicarage, should be blown up, as it were, with his own
explosion.
The Vicar never doubted that it was Ally that Rowcliffe wanted. For
the idea of his wanting Gwenda was so unpleasant to him that he had
dismissed it as preposterous; as for Mary, he had made up his mind
that Mary would never dream of marrying and leaving him, and that, if
she did, he would put his foot down.
There had been changes in the Vicarage in the last two months. The
shabby gray and amber drawing-room was not all shabbiness and not all
gray and amber now.
Pages:
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241