"Or he got into yours," suggested Grafton.
She allowed herself to be diverted. "Now, George," she said, "that's a thoroughly man's speech. _Is_ James happy or is he not?"
"The Bank Rate is very satisfactory at present," said Grafton. "I think both James and I are as happy as we can expect to be."
Lady Handsworth also admitted handsomely that his opposition to Lassigny had borne good fruit. "This is a more satisfactory marriage than that would have been, even if M. de Lassigny had been everything you could have wished him to be," she said. "I am glad it has come about so quickly, and so naturally, George. I did say to you, I remember, that her first love meant so much to a girl that if she were disappointed in it no other love could be quite the same to her. But you seem to have judged more rightly than I even over that, which is more of a woman's question than a man's. I suppose it is because you have always had such sympathy with your girls. I confess that I should never have expected to come to Beatrix's wedding within a few months and find her so entirely cured of that other affair. She _was_ very deeply in love, I know, and in the nicest sweetest sort of way; but she seems still more deeply in love now."
"Well, you see she's found the right fellow," said Grafton. "He's worth what she gives him. The other fellow wasn't; but I don't think she'd really given him everything; she only thought she had."
"You're a wise man, George. Women have much more to give to those they love than they have any idea of themselves at first. But men don't usually know that. And only the best sort of men bring it out. B is a darling, but it would make a great deal of difference whom she married. I do think now that with Lassigny she would just have developed as a charming delightful woman, but rather of the butterfly order--even if everything had gone right with their married life. But I think Dick will make her. She will show very fine qualities by and bye. He will bring them out."
The Bishop, who had performed the ceremony, was standing in a little group with his wife and Prescott and Viola. "Well, my dear friend," he said, "you've provided one of the happiest weddings I've ever taken part in, and I think I may say one of the very sweetest and prettiest of brides."