In September, her marriage to Siward excitingly imminent, Sylvia had been seized with a passion for wholesale renunciation and rigid self-chastisement. All that had been so materially desirable to her in life, all that she had heretofore worshipped, in and belonging to her own world, she now denied. Down went the miniature golden calf from the altar in her private shrine, its tiny crashing fall making considerable racket throughout her world, and the planets and satellites adjacent to that section of the social system which she had long been expected to dominate.
The spectacle of their youthful ruler-elect in sackcloth as the future bride of a business man had more than disconcerted them. The amazing announcement of Quarrier's engagement to Agatha Caithness stupefied the elect, rendering in one harrowing instant null and void the thousand petty plans and plots, intrigues and schemes, upon which future social constructions on the social structure had been based.
The grief and amazement of Major Belwether, already distracted by his non-participation, through his own fault, in Plank's consolidation of Amalgamated with Inter-County, was pitiable to the verge of the unpleasant. Like panic-stricken rabbits, his thoughts ran in circles, and he skipped in their wake, scurrying from Quarrier to Harrington, from Harrington to Plank, from Plank to Siward, in distracted hope of recovering his equilibrium and squatting safely somewhere in somebody's luxuriantly perpetual cabbage-patch. He even squeezed under the fence and hopped humbly about old Peter Caithness, who suddenly assumed monumental proportions among those who had so long tolerated him.
But Quarrier coldly drove him away and the increasing crowds besieging poor, bewildered old Peter Caithness trod upon the major, and there was nothing for him to do but to scuttle back to his own brush-heap and huddle there, squeaking pitifully.
As for Grace Ferrall, she lost no time in tears, but took Agatha publicly to her bosom, turned furiously on Quarrier in private, and for the first time in her life permitted herself the luxury of telling him exactly what she thought of him.
"You had your chance," she said; "but you are all surface! There's nothing to you but soft beard and manicuring, and the reticence of stupidity! The one girl for you--and you couldn't hold on to her! The one chance of your life--and it's escaped you, leaving a tuft of pompadour hair and a pair of woman's eyes protruding from the golden dust-heap your father buried you in. Now you'd better sit there and let it cover your mouth, and try to breathe through your nose. Agatha is looking for a new sensation; she's tried everything, now she's going to try you, that's all. She will be an invaluable leader, Howard, and we shall not yawn, I assure you. But, oh! the chance you've lost, for lack of a drop of red blood, and a barber to give you the beard of a man!"