Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/69

Rh plied. "Do let us always live in the country. You look so nice in flannels."

"Anywhere you like," said Digby, "only we ought always to live in the summer, because you—well —you know—you look—" He became inarticulate with love of her.

At breakfast there was no need to explain. Everybody was delighted. Digby was "such a dear" and the general feeling was that Stella was safer married, and there was not the slightest tinge of jealousy to mar the general happiness, because the idea of marrying Digby had never before crossed any female mind. High spirits prevailed, and Digby found, as other men have found, that once the idea of his marriage was accepted he had very little to do with it. He liked that because he was used to living automatically, but he resented Stella's being taken away from him and transformed out of being Stella into a bride. She escaped every now and then but never for very long. It seemed that the whole wisdom of her sex had to be imparted to her. Digby found that life was moving faster than ever before and gave it up as hopeless. Only with and through. Stella could he cope with it.

She was the first to leave the party, and after she had gone he found that he could not endure either the place or the people. This was strange, because he had never before disliked anything or anyone. So he escaped and found even his adored London; London of the Temple and the Club and Piccadilly shining like a river on a wet night, even that home of homes, dull, but acutely, torturingly dull, and his only occupation in it was and could be to tell his friends that he was going to be married to Stella. That he loathed doing, because it made him realize for the first time in his life that no one had ever taken him seriously. And, without Stella, they would not do so now.

He was just getting into his tail-coat when he remembered Mrs. Marwood. He sat down heavily and pulled at his collar.

Mrs. Marwood was a lady some years his senior on whom he had been in the habit of calling every Sunday since he was eighteen, and every Sunday he had aired his opinions in her drawing-room, an apartment sacred to that rite. In no other place was Digby aware that he had an opinion, but Mrs. Marwood had created the habit in him and because his experience with her was unique he had liked her. Occasionally he took her to the theatre or to concerts, but he knew