He felt himself to be superior to his old bachelor friend Sam Gwent, who supported him as "best man" at the ceremony, and who, as he stood, stiffly upright in immaculate "afternoon visiting attire" among the restlessly swaying, semi-whispering throng, was all the time thinking of the dusky night-gloom in the garden of the "Plaza" far away in California and a beautiful face set against the dark background of myrtle bushes exhaling rich perfume.
"What a startling contrast she would be to these dolls of fashion!" he thought--"What a sensation she would make! There's not a woman here who can compare with her! If I were only a bit younger I'd try my luck!--anyway I'm younger than to-day's bridegroom!--but she--Manella--would never look at any other man than Seaton, who doesn't care a rap for her or any other woman!" Here his thoughts took another turn.
"No," he repeated inwardly--"He doesn't care a rap for her or any other woman--except--perhaps--Morgana! And even if it were Morgana, it would be for himself and himself alone! While she--ah!--it would be a clever brain indeed that could worry out what SHE cares for! Nothing in this world, so far as I can see!" Here the organ poured the rich strains of a soft and solemn prelude through the crowded church--the "sacred" part of the ceremony was over, and bride and bridegroom made their way to the vestry, there to sign the register in the presence of a selected group of friends.

Sam Gwent was one of these,--and though he had attended many such functions before, he was more curiously impressed than usual by the unctuous and barefaced hypocrisy of the whole thing--the smiling humbug of the officiating clergy,--the affected delight of the "society" toadies fluttering like wasps round bride and bride-groom as though they were sweet dishes specially for stinging insects to feed upon, and in his mind he seemed to hear the warm, passionate voice of Manella in frank admission of her love for Seaton.
"It is good to love him!" she had said--"I am happy to love him.

I wish only to serve him!" This was primitive passion,--the passion of primitive woman for her mate whom she admitted to be stronger than herself, to whom she instinctively looked for shelter and protection, and round whose commanding force she sought to rear the lovely fabric of "Home,"-- a state of feeling as far removed from the sentiments of modern women as the constellation of Orion is removed from earth.

And Sam Gwent's fragmentary reflections flitting through his brain were more serious--one might say more romantic, than the consideration of dollars, which usually occupied all his faculties.

He had always thought that there was a good deal in life which he had missed somehow, and which dollars could not purchase; and a certain irate contempt filled him for the man who, unlike himself, was in the prime of strength, and who, with all the glories of Nature about him and the love and beauty of an exquisite womanhood at his hand for possession, could nevertheless devote his energies to the science of destruction and the compassing of death without compunction, on the lines Roger Seaton had laid down as the remedy against all war.
"The kindest thing to think of him is that he's not quite sane,"-- Gwent mused--"He has been obsessed by the horrible carnage of the Great War, and disgusted by the utter inefficiency of Governments since the armistice, and this appalling invention of his is the result." The crashing chords of the Bridal March from "Lohengrin" put an end to his thoughts for the moment,--people began to crush and push out of church, or stand back on each other's toes to stare at the bride's diamonds as she moved very slowly and gracefully down the aisle on the arm of her elderly husband.