one time said, but her
chances there were small since she was not a bona-fide widow. Gay
would endure anything at her hands; he knew no pride, he had no
purpose in existing save to have a good time, neither did he possess
annoying theories about life. He was an adept at flattery, and he
understood Beatrice's sensitiveness about being called stout. With a
suitor at hand well trained for the part, why waste time looking
further, she argued.

So the wedding in the sunken gardens with the cloth-of-gold-garbed
bride was planned for the next season's calendar and there would be
all the pleasure of talking it over, the entertainments, the new
clothes, and so on. His father-in-law was paralyzed and his
aunt-in-law was senile. Gay was bound to be master of all he surveyed
before long.

Perhaps during the breaking up of his establishment he might be
unpleasantly reminded of a red-haired girl who had died unmourned and
whose very ring Beatrice now wore--in exchange for one of hers which
Gay wore. But he could take an extra cordial if that was the case and
soon forget. After all, Trudy, like Steve, had been impossible; and
Gay felt positive that impossible people would not count at judgment
day.

Likewise Beatrice, who regarded the whole thing as a lark, thought
sometimes of Steve, who, she understood, was superintendent of a large
plant some two hundred miles removed from Hanover, and of the time
when the slightest flicker of her eyes made him glad for all the day,
or the suggestion of a pout brought him to the level of despair.
Perhaps she thought, too, of the very few moments as his wife during
which she had wished things might have been as he wanted. No, not
really wished--but wondered how it would have been. And of Mary she
thought a great deal--that was to be expected. No one wrote her about
Mary, no one seemed to think it would be interesting. The dozen dear
friends who deluged her with weekly items of local scandal never once
told her of her wife-in-law, as Gay dubbed her. Therefore she thought
of her more than she did of any one else--even Gay.

She wondered if Mary was making simple hemstitched things for her
trousseau; if she would shamelessly marry this divorced man,
superintendent of a cement works; if she would go live in a
brown-shingled house and belong to the town social centre and all the
rest of the woman's-column, bargain-day, sewing-society things. And
Beatrice knew that Mary would. Moreover, that she wou