I just send one to Renny, something like this: 'Pheasant and I married. Home to-morrow. Tell Maurice.' Would that be all right?"
"No," she said, firmly. "Maurice must have a telegram all to himself, from me. Say: 'Dear Maurice—'"
"Good Lord! You can't begin a telegram, 'Dear Maurice.' It isn't done. Tell me what you want to say and I'll put it in the proper form."
Pheasant spoke in an incensed tone. "See here; is this your telegram or mine? I've never written a letter or sent a telegram to Maurice in my life and I probably never shall again. So it's going to begin: 'Dear Maurice.'"
"All right, my girl. Fire away."
"Say, 'Dear Maurice: Piers and I are married. Tell Nannie. Yours sincerely, Pheasant.' That will do."
Piers could not conceal his mirth at such a telegram, but he promised to send it, and after giving her body a convulsive squeeze and receiving a kiss on the sunburned bridge of his nose he left her.
She was alone. She was married. All the old life was over and the new just beginning. She went to the dressing-table and stood before the three-sectioned mirror. It was wonderful to see her own face there, from all sides at once. She felt that she had never really seen herself before—no wonder her reflection looked surprised. She turned this way and that, tilting her head like a pretty bird. She took off her brown dress and stood enthralled by the reflection of her charms in knickers and a little white camisole. She turned on the electric light, and made a tableau with her slender milky arms upraised and her eyes half closed. She wished she could spend a long time playing with these magical reflections, but Piers might come back and find her not dressed.
A bell in some tower struck six.
