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 CHAPTER

VI

Mor#-trxz, Patricia hovered around the mystic radiance of Constance’s wedding festivities. They had let her come home from school for the occasion. Reckoned too young for a bridesmaid and too old for a flower-girl she occupied an anomalous and unofficial position in the party. Dee, who, as maid of honour, had opportunity to exercise her executive faculties in managing the details, found her irritatingly in the way. “Under your feet all the time,” said she to the bride. “The kid is crazy with curiosity. I never heard so many guestions.” “Yes,” assented Constance fretfully. “She keeps asking me how I feel and staring at me as if I were going to die or have an operation or something.” Dee laughed. “She got hold of-Fred yesterday and put him through a catechism while he was waiting for you to come down. He actually looked rattled.” “She’s a pest, that child! School doesn’t seem to have toned her down a bit.” - “At least it’s taken the slump out of her shoulders. She’s got a kind of boyish swagger that isn’t bad. For her kind of style, I mean.” “Oh, style!” repeated the elder sister contemptuously. “‘She’ll never have any more style than a kitten. I wish you’d keep her out of my way.” To accomplish

this, however, would

have entailed an

almost continuous vigilance. The elaborate ceremonial of marriage and giving in marriage with its trappings and appurtenances, its geen! snegestions of sexual-sacri-