IV.
It was to be a house wedding, Forrest and Alida having vetoed the Rikkers’ idea that it was to be a sort of public revenge. Only a few intimate friends were invited.
During the week before the wedding, Forrest deduced from a series of irresolute and ambiguous telephone calls that his mother wanted to attend the ceremony, if possible. Sometimes he hoped passionately she would; at others it seemed unimportant.
The wedding was to be at seven. At five o’clock Pierce Winslow was walking up and down the two interconnecting sitting rooms of his house.
“This evening,” he murmured, “my only son is being married to the daughter of a swindler.”
He spoke aloud so that he could listen to the words, but they had been evoked so often in the past few months that their strength was gone and they d
