"Can't say I admire the altar. Scrappy rather with those flowers."

He coughed behind his hand and cleared his throat. At the back of his

mind he was speculating whether flight at this eleventh hour would be

criminal or merely reprehensible bad taste. A murmur from the nudgers

announced the arrival of the bridal party.

The little procession from a remote door became one of the enduring

memories of Mr. Polly's life. The little verger had bustled to meet

it, and arrange it according to tradition and morality. In spite of

Mrs. Larkins' "Don't take her from me yet!" he made Miriam go first

with Mr. Voules, the bridesmaids followed and then himself hopelessly

unable to disentangle himself from the whispering maternal anguish of

Mrs. Larkins. Mrs. Voules, a compact, rounded woman with a square,

expressionless face, imperturbable dignity, and a dress of

considerable fashion, completed the procession.

Mr. Polly's eye fell first upon the bride; the sight of her filled him

with a curious stir of emotion. Alarm, desire, affection, respect--and

a queer element of reluctant dislike all played their part in that

complex eddy. The grey dress made her a stranger to him, made her

stiff and commonplace, she was not even the rather drooping form that

had caught his facile sense of beauty when he had proposed to her in

the Recreation Ground. There was something too that did not please him

in the angle of her hat, it was indeed an ill-conceived hat with large

aimless rosettes of pink and grey. Then his mind passed to Mrs.

159

The History of Mr Polly