cause of our jubilation, at all interfere with the jubilation itself; by
the time the launch was ready to put me ashore, Gazza had sung several

miles of "good music" and double that quantity of "razzla-dazzla," and
General Rieppe was crying copiously, and assuring everybody that God was

very good to him. But Kitty had told us all that she intended Hortense to
remain quiet in her cabin; and she kept her word.

Quite suddenly, as the launch was speeding me toward Kings Port, I
exclaimed aloud: "The cake!"

And, I thought, the cake was now settled forever.
XXII: Behind the Times

It was my lot to attend but one of the weddings which Hortense
precipitated (or at least determined) by her plunge into the water; and,

truth to say, the honor of my presence at the other was not requested;
therefore I am unable to describe the nuptials of Hortense and Charley.

But the papers were full of them; what the female guests wore, what the
male guests were worth, and what both ate and drank, were set forth in

many columns of printed matter; and if you did not happen to see this,
just read the account of the next wedding that occurs among the New York

yellow rich, and you will know how Charley and Hortense were married; for
it's always the same thing. The point of mark in this particular ceremony

of union lay in Charley's speech; Charley found a happy thought at the
breakfast. The bridal party (so the papers had it) sat on a dais, and was

composed exclusively of Oil, Sugar, Beef, Steel, and Union Pacific;
merely at this one table five hundred million dollars were sitting (so

the papers computed), and it helped the bridegroom to his idea, when, by
the importunate vociferations of the company, he was forced to get on his

unwilling legs.
"Poets and people of that sort say" (Charley concluded, after thanking

them) "that happiness cannot be bought with money. Well, I guess a poet
never does learn how to make a dollar do a dollar's work. But I am no

poet; and I have learned it is as well to have a few dollars around. And
I guess that my friends and I, right here at this table, could organize a

corner in happiness any day we chose. And if we do, we will let you all
in on it."

I am told that the bride looked superb, both in church and at the
reception which took place in the house of Kitty; and that General

Rieppe, in spite of his shattered health, maintained a noble appearance
through the whole ordeal of parting with his daughter. I noticed that

Beverly Rodgers and Gazza figured prominently among the invited guests:
Bohm did not have to be invited, for some time before the wedding he had

become the husband of the successfully divorced Kitty. So much for the
nuptials of Hortense and Charley; they were, as one paper pronounced

them, "up to date and distingue." The paper omitted the accent in the
French word, which makes it, I think, fit this wedding even more happily.

"So Hortense," I said to myself as I read the paper, "has squared herself
with Charley after all." And I sat wondering if she would be happy. But

she was not constructed for happiness. You cannot be constructed for all
the different sorts of experiences which this world offers: each of our

natures has its specialty. Hortense was constructed for pleasure; and I
have no doubt she got it, if not through Charley, then by other means.

The marriage of Eliza La Heu and John Mayrant was of a different quality;
no paper pronounced it "up to date," or bestowed any other adjectival

comments upon it; for, being solemnized in Kings Port, where such purely
personal happenings are still held (by the St. Michael family, at any

rate) to be no business of any one's save those immediately concerned,
the event escaped the famishment of publicity. Yes, this marriage was

solemnized, a word that I used above without forethought, and now repeat
with intention; for certainly no respecter of language would write it of

the yellow rich and their blatant unions. If you're a Bohm or a Charley,
you may trivialize or vulgarize or bestialize your wedding, but solemnize

it you don't, for that is not "up to date."
And to the marriage of Eliza and John I went; for not only was the honor

of my presence requested, but John wrote me, in both their names, a
personal note, which came to me far away in the mountains, whither I had

gone from Kings Port. This was the body of the note:--
"To the formalinvitation which you will receive, Miss La Heu joins her

wish with mine that you will not be absent on that day. We should both
really miss you. Miss La Heu begs me to add that if this is not

sufficient inducement, you shall have a slice of Lady Baltimore."
Not a long note! But you will imagine how genuinely I was touched by

their joint message. I was not an old acquaintance, and I had done little
to help them in their troubles, but I came into the troubles; with their

memory of those days I formed a part, and it was a part which it warmed
me to know they did not dislike to recall. I had actually been present at

their first meeting, that day when John visited the Exchange to order his
wedding-cake, and Eliza had rushed after him, because in his embarrassment

he had forgotten to tell her the date for which he wanted it.
The cake had begun it, the cake had continued it, the cake had brought

them together; and in Eliza's retrospect now I doubted If she could find
the moment when her love for John had awakened; but if with women there

ever is such a moment, then, as I have before said, it was when the girl
behind the counter looked across at the handsome, blushing boy, and felt

stirred to help him in his stumbling attempts to be businesslike about
that cake. If his youth unwittingly kindled hers, how could he or she

help that? But, had he ever once known it and shown it to her during his
period of bondage to Hortense, then, indeed, the flame would have turned

to ice in Eliza's breast. What saved him for her was his blind
steadfastness against her. That was the very thing she prized most, once

it became hers; whereas, any secret swerving toward her from Hortense
during his heavy hours of probation would have degraded John to nothing

in Eliza's eyes. And so, making all this out by myself in the mountains
after reading John's note, I ordered from the North the handsomest old

china cake-dish that Aunt Carola could find to be sent to Miss Eliza La
Heu with my card. I wanted to write on the card, "Rira bien qui viva le

dernier"; but alas! so many pleasant thoughts may never be said aloud in
this world of ours. That I ordered china, instead of silver, was due to

my surmise that in Kings Port--or at any rate by Mrs. Weguelin and Miss
Josephine St. Michael--silver from any one not of the family would be

considered vulgar; it was only a surmise, and, of course, it was
precisely the sort of thing that I could not verify by asking any of

them.
But (you may be asking) how on earth did all this come about? What

happened in Kings Port on the day following that important swim which
Hortense and John took together in the waters of the harbor?

I wish that I could tell you all that happened, but I can only tell you
of the outside of things; the inside was whollyinvisible and inaudible

to me, although we may be sure, I think, that when the circles that
widened from Hortense's plunge reached the shores of the town, there must

have been in certain quarters a considerablesplashing. I presume that
John communicated to somebody the news of his broken engagement; for if

he omitted to do so, with the weddinginvitations to be out the next day,
he was remiss beyond excuse, and I think this very unlikely; and I also

presume (with some evidence to go on) that Hortense did not, in the
somewhat critical juncture of her fortunes, allow the grass to grow under

her feet--if such an expression may be used of a person who is shut up in
the stateroom of a steam yacht. To me John Mayrant made no sign of any

sort by word or in writing, and this is the highest proof he ever gave me
of his own delicacy, and also of his reliance upon mine; for he must have

been pretty sure that I had overheard those last destiny-deciding words
spoken between himself and Hortense in the boat, as we reached the Hermana's

gangway. In John's place almost any man, even Beverly Rodgers, would have
either dropped a hint at the moment, or later sent me some line to the

effect that the incident was, of course, "between ourselves." That would
have been both permissible and practical; but there it was, the

difference between John of Kings Port and us others; he was not practical
when it came to something "between gentlemen," as he would have said. The

finest flower of breeding blossoms above the level of the practical, and
that is why you do not find it growing in the huge truck-garden of our