a little ashamed of what she had said so naturally. {45}
{45}
'I think Konstantin would like to have it in a chapel-of-ease in the Old Kent Road!' she said, laughing. 'He sometimes talks of being married in tweeds and driving off in a hansom! Then he suggests going to Constantinople and getting it done by the Patriarch, who is his uncle. Really, that would be rather smart, wouldn't it?'
'Distinctly,' assented Lady Maud. 'But if you do that, I'm afraid I cannot help you with the wedding-gown. I don't know anything about the dress of a Fanariote bride.'
'Konstantin says they dress very well,' Margaret said. 'But of course it is out of the question to do anything so ridiculous. It will end in the chapel-of-ease, I'm sure. He always has his own way. That's probably why I'm going to marry him, just because he insists on it. I don't see any other very convincing reason.'
Lady Maud could not think of anything to say in answer to this; but as she really liked the singer she thought it was a pity.
Paul Griggs, the veteran man of letters, smiled rather sadly when she met him shopping in New Bond Street, and told him of Margaret's engagement. He said that most great singers married because the only way to the divorce court led up the steps of the altar. Though he knew the world he was not a cynic, and Lady Maud herself wondered how long it would be before Logotheti and his wife separated.
'But they are not married yet,' Griggs added, looking {46} at her with the quietly ready expression of a man who is willing that his indifferent words should be taken to have a special meaning if the person to whom he has spoken chooses, or is able, to understand them as they may be understood, but who is quite safe from being suspected of suggesting anything if there is no answering word or glance.
{46}
Lady Maud returned his look, but her handsome face grew rather cold.
'Do you know of any reason why the marriage should not take place?' she inquired after a moment.
'If I don't give any reason, am I ever afterwards to hold my peace?' asked Griggs, with a faint smile on his weather-beaten face. 'Are you publishing the bans? or are we thinking of the same thing?'
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