“Take hold of my hand,” said Roland, and he dragged her over the remaining thirty yards. They rushed through the big French windows of the drawing-room at the very moment that the party had assembled there before going down to dinner. They had quite forgotten that there would be an audience. They stopped, and Muriel gave out a horrified gasp of “Oh!”
They certainly were a ridiculous couple as they stood there hand in hand, hot, disheveled, out of breath, beside that well-groomed company of men and women in evening dress. Mrs. Marston hurried forward with the slightly deprecating manner of the hostess whose plans have been disturbed.
“My dear children----” But Muriel had by this time recovered her breath and courage. She raised a peremptory hand.
“One minute. We’ve got something to tell you all.”
“But surely, dear, after dinner,” Mrs. Marston began.
“No, mother, dear, now,” and, with a twinkle in her eye and a sly glance at her embarrassed lover, Muriel made her alarming announcement:
“Roland and I, mother, we’re going to be married.”
Roland had seen in a French novel a startling incident of domestic revelation recorded by two words: _consternation générale_, and those two words suited the terrible hush that followed Muriel’s confession. It was not a hush of anger, or disapproval, but of utter and complete astonishment. For a few minutes no one said anything. The young men of the party either adjusted their collar studs and gazed towards the ceiling, or flicked a speck of dust from their trousers and gazed upon the floor. The young women gazed upon each other. Mrs. Marston thought nervously of the condition of the retarded dinner, and Mr. Marston tried, without success, to prove adequate to the situation. Only Muriel enjoyed it; she loved a rag, and her eyes passed from one figure to another; not one of them dared look at her.
“Well,” she said at last, “we did think you’d want to congratulate us.” To Mr. Marston some criticism of himself appeared to be implied in this remark. He pulled down his waistcoat, coughed, and went through the preliminaries usual to him when preparing to address the board. And, in a sense, this was a board meeting, a family board meeting.
“My dear Muriel,” he began, but he had advanced no further than these three words when the dinner gong sounded for the second time. It was a signal for Mrs. Marston to bustle forward.