“Don't forget to come and have a little talk with me later. I have n't seen you since dear Norma's engagement.”
To dear Norma she was equally urbane, called her a lucky girl, and presented her as a bride-elect to the duke, who murmured a vague formula of congratulation which he had remembered from early terrestrial days.
“I can't tell you how proud I am of you, Norma!” said Mrs. Hardacre, with a lump in her throat, as they passed on. “The dear duchess! I wonder if I am sufficiently grateful to Providence.”
Norma, although in her heart pleased by the manifestation of ducal favour, could not let the opportunity for a taunt pass by.
“You can refer to it in your prayers, mother: 'O God, I thank Thee for shedding Her Grace upon me.' Won't that do, father.”
“Eh, what?” asked Mr. Hardacre, very red in the face, trailing half a pace behind his wife and daughter.
“Ha! ha! Devilish good! Tell that in the club,” he said in high good-humour. His wife's glance suddenly withered him.
“I don't approve of blasphemy,” she said.
“Towards whom, mother dear?” asked Norma, suavely. “The Almighty or the duchess?”
Mr. Hardacre, seeing in the distance a man to whom he thought he could sell a horse, escaped from the domestic wrangle. Mother and daughter wandered through the crowd, greeted by friends, pausing here and there to exchange a few words, until they came to the door of the music-room, filled to overflowing, where an operatic singer held the assembly in well-bred silence. At the door the crush was ten deep. On the outskirts conversation hummed like an echo of the noise from the suite of rooms behind. There they were joined by Morland. Mrs. Hardacre told him of the duchess's graciousness. He grinned, taking the information with the air of a man to whom the favour of duchesses bestowed upon his betrothed is a tribute to his own excellence. He thought she would be pleased, he said. They must get the old girl to come to the wedding. Mrs. Hardacre was pained, but she granted young love indulgence for the profanity. If they only could, she assented, the success of the ceremony would be assured. Norma turned to Morland with a laugh.
“We shall be married with a vengeance, if it's sanctified by the duchess. Do you think a parson is at all necessary?”